


Déconcertant Concerto

by lesmisloony



Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao
Genre: Gay And On The Floor, Italian Boyfriends, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-11 13:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesmisloony/pseuds/lesmisloony
Summary: Antonio Salieri's librettist brought out a side of him that he didn't know he had from the first day they began working together.  But just when he was starting to get used to it, it went too far.





	1. Overture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going through the Florum last year and discovered bits of this story. It's baby's first Mozart l'Opéra Rock fanfic from 2011! Then I remembered I had handwritten it in my notebook while I was sitting in class back in the day (in between weekends when I was out following the tournée around and developing feelings over a couple members of the Troupe which eventually distracted me from posting the rest of the fic online) and I dug up my old notebook only to find more chapters I had totally forgotten about and a plot outline. I realized that only a few chapters were missing... so I'm bringing it back! Some of the chapters are almost exactly the way I wrote them seven years ago, and some I'm having to write now based on vague memories of what I meant to write back in the day. If you notice anything in this fic that's strikingly similar to something else I've written, it's because I never thought this thing would see the light of day so I reused some concepts for other stories. Also it's very Amadeus-y. And if you notice any characterizations that seem way off... blame 2011!me. 
> 
> And as I said in my original ff.net summary for this fic back in 2011: "Warning: slash. Rating may go up later."

I was not sad when Wolfgang Mozart died.

In fact, during the days leading up to his death - days that, for him, were reportedly filled with desperate work and a burning fever - were days that set me on the path to the happiest time of my life.

I do not wish to mislead you; I am not the heartless, jealous, pathetic creature that so many have created out of my story.  The world looked at the evidence they could see, at the works of Wolfgang Mozart and of Antonio Salieri, and they saw a rigid man overshadowed by his boyish colleague.  They saw my music fading into silence while his played forever, and they wove a story out of it.

They were wrong.

It was never my intention to destroy Mozart.  That was Count Rosenberg's project, his obsession.  Briefly I aided him, it's true, but there is an element missing from our famous tale, the piece that might excuse me in the eyes of the public as surely as it damns me in the eyes of God.

I mourned Wolfgang Mozart as earnestly as I could, but those days, as I said, were all but idyllic for me.  Nothing really hurt, not even his unfinished requiem or the knowledge that there would be no more - no new music to engulf me, to tempt me and seduce me, to convince me to release all the beliefs I had always lived by, had always clung to like ivy to an oak... but it was too late for me by then.  I was not strong enough to resist, and so I paid for my sins as I watched my work fall out of favor with the Viennese, watched my medals gather dust, watched as fewer and fewer heads turned as I passed in the street...

I cannot make myself regret the choice I made.

Even now that I am alone in silence, had I seen my future then I would not have changed my path.

They want to write my story as a tragedy, but they are wrong.

It was a romance.

 


	2. Cadenza: The Music Room

"Lorenzo!  Come look!"

I huff, jabbing my quill a little too ferociously into the inkwell.

"Wolfgang, I'm begging you to sit-"

"Just look for a second!  Quickly!"

The groan of a chair, Da Ponte's measured, gentle stride crossing the room - I remember those long nights we worked together, the way he paced silently across floors that should have creaked, his heavy brow furrowed and his white cuffs splattered with ink-

I am not going to get anything accomplished today.

"Wolfgang, you said a change of scenery would help you return to work.  We've been here for an hour and we have nothing to show for it.  I'm sure Maestro Salieri-"

"Look!  Look, hurry!"

A heavy sigh.  "It's the emperor's niece."

"Look at her hat!"

"Yes, it's very nice.  Come now, have a seat.  Please."

"Where do you think she got it?"

"I don't-"

"I'm going to get a snack."

"Wolfgang!"

"I'll only be a minute.  And when I come back, straight to work!  I promise!"

"Wolfgang, there's no time-"

But the door has already slammed and now the only sound in the room is a long, slow sigh from Da Ponte.

I smirk at my music, scratching a stem onto an eighth note with unnecessary care.  After a moment I decide that that was a mistake, but I can't bear to mark it out.  Instead I elect to draw a careful series of circles on the corner of the page.  Within a few moments I am so lost in my doodling that I start at the sudden intrusion of Da Ponte's voice.

"I suppose you're finding this all terribly amusing."

I don't respond right away: I gently place my quill on the desk, straighten my music, and smooth my waistcoat, all the time deciding how to answer.  I haven't spoken to Lorenzo Da Ponte since I first heard his name linked with Mozart's, years ago now.  It has been surprisingly simple to keep our paths from crossing for so long.  If ever we are in the same room, I need only keep my silence and refuse to acknowledge him.  He has never had the opportunity to address me: I haven't allowed it and he hasn't dared. 

But now we are alone.

I lift my chin and frown down at my former partner before finally answering.  "I believe 'distracting' is a much more appropriate word.  I fail to find the humor in the situation.  Or in your friend's behavior."

"Oh, for God's sake, Antonio," Da Ponte snaps, but then he falters and falls silent.

I smirk as Da Ponte fumbles with his quill.  "You can be so childish sometimes," he mutters.

"Ah yes, in the future I shall try to conduct myself with all the maturity and poise of your friend Mozart."

"How can you continue to be so angry with me?  After all this time!  It's not as though the loss of my librettos has hindered your success, now has it?  And you've seen the effect Figaro had on the Viennese!"

I say nothing, turning back to my work.  I lift the quill and draw another circle on the opposite side of the page.

"Antonio?"

I draw a perfect cross through the second circle.

"What astounded petulance," Da Ponte hisses.  I hear his chair skitter across the floor.  A moment later his hand snatches the music out from under my quill; his heavy rings catch the light from the window and I recoil involuntarily.  "You haven't written anything."

"How could I, with all the fuss you two have been making?" I retort.  I try to retrieve my music, but Da Ponte catches my arm, his long fingers easily encircling my wrist.  He holds me there for a moment, both of us staring at the other in surprise, before I am able to collect myself and break free.  He does not try to keep his grip on me.  I throw myself to my feet and stride to the other side of the room, pretending to study the bookshelf, mindful to keep my back to him.  I can feel those eyes of his burning into me.

"It isn't as though I betrayed you," I hear him say.  The stillness in the room seems to muffle his voice.  "You knew how I felt and you told me to find someone else.  You were the one who-"

"I didn't mean him," I say, gritting my teeth.

"Why not him?  Nonsense."

I still don't turn around.

"Because to the untrained eye your ridiculous behavior indicates jealousy.  And if that's the case - Antonio, he's a good composer, he's a good man, but he's nothing like you.  Just because we aren't working together... I mean, a word from you, Antonio... I told you how I felt.  How I feel."

"I can't believe you're still talking about this."

"Antonio..."

Unable to stand any more, I pivot on my heel, avoiding Da Ponte's gaze as I go back to my desk.  I stack the pages of music and retrieve the quill which has fallen to the floor.

Da Ponte has not moved.  "Antonio, please.  If it's your pride, if it's the vow you made-"

The door flies open, slamming into the wall with so much force that the portraits rattle.  "Anything happen while I was gone?"

At the sound of Mozart's obnoxious voice, my hand slips and I knock a single sheet of music off my desk.  I watch it drift gently to the ground, lifting my gaze when it lands only to find Da Ponte staring at me with shock written into all his features.

And then I realize what he has seen: it wasn't the sound of the door that flustered Antonio Salieri.

Oblivious to the tension in the room, Mozart throws himself into his chair and grins at us.  There is a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth.  I suppress a sneer; a child would have been clever enough to wipe its mouth after eating, but not Mozart, the genius?  Some companion Da Ponte has chosen.

I feel Da Ponte's eyes on me and I realize that, from his point of view, I am staring at Mozart's lips.  I spin around and snatch my music from my desk, murmuring some kind of excuse as I hurry toward the door.

"Signor Salieri!"

Da Ponte's voice again.  I have no choice but to pause.

"This is yours," Da Ponte says.  "Here."

I turn, guarded, to see him holding out that traitor page of music.  The circles drawn in the corners are clearly visible to Mozart, who is licking his fingers contentedly, swinging one leg so that the red heel of his shoe bounces off the leg of his chair.

I cross the room again, much slower this time, and pluck the page from Da Ponte's hand.  I add it to the pile in my arms, batting at it a few times as though that might smooth the creases.  Suddenly Da Ponte is gripping my shoulder.

I can't bear to look up, afraid of how I might react if I see pity in his eyes.  Or, worse - warmth.

"Good luck with it, my friend," Da Ponte says in Italian, his voice low.

I pull away and sweep out of the room.  I pause in the hallway long enough to force my hands to stop shaking, to wait until the blood is not pounding so loudly in my head.  It has been so long since I have been that close, so long since-

I force myself to think of something else.  I need to collect myself.

But I regret having lingered when I hear Mozart's voice say, "He's a funny sort of person, isn't he?  Is he always so stiff?"

"I think his work is giving him trouble," Da Ponte answers gently.  "He's a good man - if he ever lets you get to know him."

Perfect.  Pity from Lorenzo Da Ponte.  I hug my music to my chest and hurry away.


	3. Exposition: Reservation

"You're late, Signor Da Ponte."

The moment I had seen the long hand on the clock pass the twelve I had positioned my chair directly in front of the door, a blank sheet of parchment in my lap and a quill in my hand.  When he finally came in I had spoken before he looked up; now, having taken him by surprise, I had to press my lips into a tight line to hide my smile.

Da Ponte was less successful at keeping a straight face as he glanced down at his fob watch.  "Three minutes!  Good God, what have I done?"  He closed the door, unable to keep one side of his mouth from lifting into that peculiar toothy grin of his.

"I shall expect you to stay three minutes later than usual to make up for it." Blast, my own smile refused to be contained anymore.  I pushed myself to my feet, passing the quill and parchment to my colleague so that I could put my chair back at its desk. "To work," I said brusquely, pleased to find that the idea of returning to my music was already settling me, the irritating urge to laugh fading away.  "Come, Da Ponte, give me back the quill.  We've an entire opera to write." I put out my hand.

He took a step back, that playful light still glowing in his large eyes.  "Lorenzo."

"What?"

"'Lorenzo,' please.  If we're to work together, I insist you use my name - Antonio."

I flinched as if the name had been thrown at me.  "I don't entirely think-"

"Well, I do.  The offer stands."

And Da Ponte crossed his arms, daring me to complain again.  For a long time we simply faced each other, though I admit I found it impossible to hold his gaze and was forced to focus instead on one of his heavy silver rings.  "We should get to work," I heard myself say at last, adding, "Da Ponte."

"Very well.  Antonio."

I sighed heavily and I heard him chuckle.

He had only been in Vienna for a short time, yet I could barely remember the day I first met Lorenzo Da Ponte.  I could recall that I was immediately struck by his height - being rather tall myself, it was not often I had to look up at another man - and his eyes.  He had large, handsomely-shaped eyes whose lifted corners gave him a permanent air of good humor and whose heavy lids made him look sleepy when he blinked.  I remembered his outfit: he was wearing one of the homeliest wigs I had ever seen, a black monstrosity with multiple curls framing the sides of his face, and he was dressed rather like a priest, completely in black with a stiff white cravat evoking a clerical collar.  All told, he was immediately an impressive figure, but nothing about his personality remained in my memory.  Even in looking at the entry in my journal from that day (and in those days I tended to keep rather detailed accounts of my encounters) there is barely mention of my new acquaintance and there is no trace of what we might have talked about.  How droll that such a relationship should begin so unremarkably.

I had spoken to the emperor to secure for Da Ponte the post of court librettist, a favor to a mutual friend back in Venice, only to learn that Da Ponte had never written so much as a verse in his life.  The emperor was less affected by this news than I, but, uneager to admit my mistake, I had agreed to provide the music to one of Da Ponte's first librettos.

And by the time we had had our second meeting I had discovered that my new colleague had a rather annoying habit of making me laugh.

In fact, I was not at all pleased to find that I quite liked him.  I was a successful man, an impressive figure who worked perfectly well on my own, who loved nothing more than that moment when the first strike of the harpischord keys broke the silence in my vast parlor.  But with Da Ponte I found myself conversing easily in our native Italian, even listening to his stories about people back home in Venice of whom I hadn't thought in years.  In Italian his voice was soft and confidential; in German it was low and gravelly and beautiful.  He was comfortable somehow: as soon as he had become a part of my life I couldn't imagine what it had been like before I met had known him.

Our first opera, though not my best work, was a pleasure to write.  I could see that his libretto was mediocre, but with surprise I realized that I did not mind.  We had worked easily together, I offering advice on his libretto and he continuously teasing me for the rigidity of my scores.  We met every day, alternating between my home and the palace, to see our second opera take shape.  I had already given thought to the subject of our third.  As the weather turned colder, I began to notice that I didn't even mind his insistence on familiarity, which had begun on the day he was three minutes late and continued, unrelenting, deep into the Austrian winter.

"Close the window, Da Ponte."

He made a show of looking around the room as though the order might have been directed at someone else, shrugged, and turned back to the view of the barren gardens.  It was snowing; we had elected to work at the palace today rather than at my home in order to conserve my own supply of firewood.

"Alright," I sighed.  He had been doing this for days now.  "Close the window,  _Lorenzo_."

"Aha!" said Da Ponte with his lopsided smile.  "I wore you down."

"It's winter.  It's cold.  Close the window."

"Sit closer to the fire."

"Any closer and I will be amidst the logs.  I will go up in flames and you will have no one to put music to these fine words of yours."

"There's Gluck."

"He's an imbecile."

Da Ponte laughed.  He inhaled deeply before finally pulling the window closed, blocking the icy breeze at last.  He returned to the desk and dropped into the empty chair at my side, pulling it a little too close as he always did.  I had learned to stop recoiling from him before we had even finished the first act: he meant nothing by it.

Or so I had thought.  I could feel him staring at me instead of lifting the quill, so I turned and caught his gaze.  Immediately I regretted it.  I had not realized how close he actually was: I could see the pores of his nose and each of his thick eyelashes.  Why did he insist on looking at me that way?  His large brown eyes flicked back and forth across my face and I could not quite bring myself to turn away.  "So," he said softly, his tongue darting across his bottom lip, "what happens next?"

For an instant I couldn't understand the question - I was lost in a bizarre sensation that bordered on panic.  It was all but inexplicable.  I wanted to back my chair away from him, wanted him to move away or at least look at something else, but I couldn't make myself do it.  Instead I cleared my throat and the harsh noise broke through, returning me to reality.  He was only talking about the opera.

I shuffled through the papers again.  The room was stuffy now that the window was closed.  My cravat was choking me.  "We need to work," I said weakly.

Da Ponte furrowed his brow.  "So let's work."

"Of course." It seemed I had taken temporary leave of my senses.  What had happened to me?  Earlier in the day I had been in the company of the emperor and one of his favorite librettists, a man everyone in Vienna knew I found loathsome, and had finished a few glasses of wine to ease my frustration.  Perhaps it was the lingering effect of the alcohol.  I had never been one to indulge in drink.

I cleared my throat again, unable to look at Da Ponte for fear that his gaze would hurl me back into a fit of madness.  Perhaps I needed rest.  I could not find the passage we had been working on.  "What was-"

"I don't want to work with someone else, you know," Da Ponte murmured.

For a moment I thought I had misheard.  "Ah- yes.  Of course."

"Here." He passed me a half-finished sheet of music.  "We were on the aria."

There was a knock on the door; he was on his feet at once to open it, completely unaware that something had just happened to me.  A spot on my thigh was colder now: I realized that his knee had been pressed to my leg, so close had he pulled his chair.  Why hadn't I noticed earlier that he had been touching me?  Why had he been touching me at all?

"Pardon me, Herr Da Ponte, if you please- if you don't mind, of course- if I might have a word with Herr Salieri, just for a moment?"

Recognizing the shrill voice of Gottlieb Stephanie, I caught Da Ponte's eye and shook my head, pressing a finger to my lips.  I had already spent enough time in that excitable fool's presence for one day.  What I needed now was the company of my own librettist, Stephanie's opposite in dignity.  Either that or an entire bottle of wine.

Da Ponte nodded back to me, his expression very serious and a finger at his own lip, before turning and throwing the door open the rest of the way.  "Of course, Signor Stephanie!" he said grandly.  "He's just inside."

Bastard.

The energetic little man stumbled into the room, looking around nervously before spotting me and crying, "Ha!" in triumph.

I clenched my quill tightly in my fist, trying not to let the tautness in my jaw give away my urge to pummel both of the librettists into the ground.

"Herr Salieri!" Stephanie trilled, bowing so low and so abruptly that I worried his forehead would smack into the floorboards.  Over his shoulder, Da Ponte was trying to hide his amusement behind his hand, but I could see the humor crinkling around the corners of his eyes.  While Stephanie's head was lowered I glared murderously past him at my colleague, who caught my gaze and winked.

Suddenly I realized that it wasn't anger I was forcing down behind my cool expression: it was laughter.  How annoying.  I wished Da Ponte had been with me this morning to lighten my mood.

"Oh, Herr Salieri, I just have to tell you- that is, I just wanted to thank you!  What you said to the emperor, Herr Salieri, earlier today!  It was you who convinced him that Mozart should write my opera!  Oh, Herr Salieri, if only you knew how happy I am!"  And then he dropped into another absurd bow.

I wasn't sure how to respond.  Yes, I had said something earlier to the emperor, though I hadn't acted out of any concern for Stephanie's silly opera.  Being around him and the obnoxiously self-important Count Rosenberg had ruined my morning: upon spotting the footman with a tray of wine I had downed everyone's serving almost immediately.  By the time the emperor asked me for my opinion there had been a slight ringing in my ears.

Stephanie was still bent in half; I caught Da Ponte's eye again while searching for something to say.  Apparently my expression was entertaining, because suddenly my colleague's other hand flew to his mouth.  I realized he was shaking with silent laughter.  He was ridiculous.  I had to look away to collect myself and force the smile down from the corners of my mouth.  "Think nothing of it," I said at last.  I had hoped to sound dismissive, but I could hear my own voice straining against my amusement.  Da Ponte had collapsed against the wall, his entire face hidden behind his hands.

"Oh, thank you!" Stephanie said again, finally straightening up only to bow once more, briefly this time.  He clasped his hands and stared at me expectantly.

I got to my feet and inclined my head slightly to acknowledge his bows before offering to walk him to the door.  The little man thanked me far too enthusiastically, insisting that he would show himself out.  He never ceased thanking me as he left the room.

The moment the door was closed I rounded on Da Ponte, who at this point was crumpled to the floor in his fit of hilarity.  Still covering his mouth with one hand, he held out the other and I took it to pull him to his feet.  "You're a complete ass," I grumbled, but I knew he wouldn't believe that I was angry with him.  I wasn't.

"Your face!" Da Ponte sputtered, clinging to my sleeve.  It seemed like he was trying to regain his composure, drawing in shaky gasps of air and looking everywhere but at me.  He released me at last, letting out a long, shuddery sigh.  "I'd love to leave the two of you in a room for one day just to see how long the poor little fellow lasts," he finally said.  His voice was high and weak with withheld laughter.

"Thanks very much," I grumbled as I returned to my desk.

"Always so stern," said Da Ponte affectionately.  "But what was it the little fellow was talking about?  You met Mozart?  What did you think of him?"

I shook my head.  "I've only heard his music and, unfortunately, rumors.  I imagine that in a few years when he has learned to behave with a little more reserve he will have quite an impressive career."

"And his music?"

"Extraordinary," I murmured, "truly."

Da Ponte plopped into the chair at my side.  He patted my hand, his eyes still crinkled with amusement, as he said, "I imagine you have more than enough reserve for the both of you, my friend.  The world needs people like Mozart to balance out people like you."

"And how am I meant to respond to that?" I asked lightly, trying not to think about how comfortably his fingertips were resting on my knuckles.

Da Ponte patted my hand once more before releasing me and seizing his quill.  "You're supposed to scold me for being foolish and insist we get back to work."

"In that case," I said, sliding a sheet of music across the desk, "I insist you stop being so foolish and that we get back to work."

Da Ponte grinned to himself as he dipped his quill into the inkwell.  "I don't know what I'd do without you, Antonio."

"You'd be as directionless and foolish as Gottlieb Stephanie."

I bit back my smile as Da Ponte laughed.


	4. Cadenza: The Imperial Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> folks this is the first official never-before-seen chapter that wasn't previously published on the Florum or ff.net.

"Alright, what's going on?  Why isn't the orchestra playing?"

The emperor's voice echoes in the empty theater, breaking through the silence.  I idly scan the long rows of seats and other shadowy boxes - anything to keep my attention away from the imperial box.  After catching a glimpse of that ridiculous wig upon my arrival, I have stationed myself at the edge of the stage, as far away as I can within reason.  I knew the moment the emperor asked me to attend this rehearsal that it would mean dealing with Mozart.  Mozart I can handle.  Mozart is always so consumed with himself - with his _music_ \- that he takes no notice of me.  The real challenge, as usual, is avoiding the gaze of his librettist.

I pretend to concentrate on one of the dancers, a brunette with a wide smile and graceful arms, but in the corner of my vision is that familiar silhouette.  As if Mozart's outrageous coat isn't distracting enough, glittering in the candlelight as he flails his arms at the silent orchestra.

The three of them are up there bickering about something: the emperor, Rosenberg... and Da Ponte.  I grit my teeth.  If I had half of Count Rosenberg's energy and single-mindedness, I could have written more music in my career at the court than Mozart has written in his entire life.  I have been present for enough of these squabbles to know what the outcome will be.  The emperor is going to ask my opinion, and all three of them are going to look beseechingly at me, hoping I'll settle the matter in their favor.  Whatever the matter is.  It takes all my resolve not to look up at them now.

I realize, too late, that the dancer has become aware of my steady gaze and has begun batting her lashes at me.  Perfect.  I turn away, trying my best to suppress a sneer as I face the orchestra.  They are sitting with their instruments ready, their bows lifted, their eyes on their conductor, but none of them are playing.

"Apologies, Majesty," Mozart suddenly calls, gesturing broadly as he strides out of the pit toward the imperial box.  "Steward Rosenberg has censored the dance from my finale and thrown it into the fire!  Apparently your Majesty doesn't tolerate ballet in his theater."

The dancers have finally stopped shuffling about on the silent stage and are watching him confront the emperor.  With a jacket like that, I don't know how they were ever able to concentrate in the first place.

And then it happens, as I knew it would: "Salieri, what do you think of all this?"

Of all what?  I step forward slowly, eyeing the musicians and the dancers as I try to determine whose side the emperor has taken.  They are all staring at me.  "Your Majesty, it's unacceptable," I say vaguely, unwilling to lift my eyes to the imperial box.  It has been months since the last time I looked Da Ponte in the eye in the music room.  The same music room we had been in the time we- the last time we had worked together.

Unacceptable. 

Mozart's jacket is unacceptable.  

Now Rosenberg is fussing and shooting poisonous looks in my direction, but the emperor is smiling.  He gestures to the orchestra.  "Salieri, take care of this, please," he says, and he returns to his seat.  When I glance up at the imperial box, I can't help but notice that Da Ponte is smirking down at Rosenberg.  It seems I have taken Mozart's side in whatever this argument about the music is.  I have taken Da Ponte's side.  I feel my stomach drop.

Mozart is back at his place, his arms crossed, his head cocked to one side, his heinous jacket shimmering.  The musicians are all turned to me now, expectant faces under matching white wigs, instruments poised, waiting for my word.  The dancers are waiting too.  I notice that the brunette is still smiling and blushing.  She smiles at me when our eyes meet, so I turn to face Mozart instead.  Had Da Ponte noticed that?

My voice sounds distant when I speak Mozart's name.

His head snaps up, that unkempt hair bouncing wildly.  "Yes?"

"Start the finale again with the orchestra, if you please."

At last the tension in the room breaks.  The musicians turn to each other with triumphant smiles, and a joyous hiss of whispers rolls through the ranks of the dancers. 

Mozart crosses his hands over his heart and smiles at me, that slight gap between his front teeth giving him the air of a schoolboy.  As usual, he is more child genius than grown man.  I wonder how Da Ponte can stand to work with him, smug as he is.  "Ah, I do please, in fact!" Mozart crows.  "Thank you, Herr Salieri!"  He drops into a theatrical bow.  From his place over by the emperor, I hear Da Ponte snicker.  I remember that day, years ago, when he went into hysterics over trapping me in a room with a very grateful Gottlieb Stephanie.  Is he thinking of that too?  Or is he thinking of our encounter in the music room last month?

I spin on my heel and return to my place by the stage, avoiding the dancer's gaze and not daring to look in Da Ponte's direction.  My mind is replaying the words he spoke to Mozart, sifting through the patronizing tone that had laced his voice as he insisted that I am a good man.  A wave of shame courses over me, clogging at my throat, and I clench my fists to steady myself.  I'd much rather he think me some unreasonable prig than pity me.  At least an unreasonable prig can be allowed dignity.  At least an unreasonable prig would not be overwhelmed by- by music.  By memories.  By thoughts of a heavy-lidded gaze or an absentminded caress.  An unreasonable prig would not lie awake at night remembering mistakes he had almost made and cursing himself for being so weak.  For acting rashly, for releasing his grip on everything he had worked for and very nearly letting it slip away.  For burning it all for the sake of a caress. 

The music begins behind me.  It is a cheerful, perfect march full of all the joy of Mozart himself and all the impetuousness of his jacket, completely at odds with my mood.

I have to get out of here.

I am in the corridor when Rosenberg appears at my side, angry and puffed up like a vain rooster, scolding me for something.  For letting Mozart win in the emperor's eyes.  For letting Mozart triumph. 

I swallow a sigh.  When did disdain blossom into a battle?  How have I gone from rolling my eyes at Mozart's behavior to instructing Rosenberg to destroy him?  This should have been a personal grudge, not a rivalry.  Not a war.  But between the Seraglio and Figaro, lines have been drawn.  Something has changed.

Mozart's librettist has changed.

 


	5. Exposition: Temptation

"Well?  And how was your visit to the Seraglio?"

I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge the joke.  I crossed Da Ponte's parlor and fell into a chair, my unfocused gaze coming to rest on the fireplace.

"A bit stiffer than usual today, are we?" asked Da Ponte, pulling another up chair to sit across from me.  "What is it, my friend?"

I shook my head.  I hardly remembered the journey from the theater to Da Ponte's apartment.  It was fortunate that I had only come to report on what I had seen of Mozart's new opera and not to work on ours.

"What has you so shocked?  You've made me imagine the worst.  Has our Mozart opened an actual brothel in the theater and robbed you of your virtue?"

Once again I could not make myself smile; I shook my head as though it had been a real suggestion.

Da Ponte leaned back in his chair with an appraising frown.  Then he nudged my shoe with the toe of his.  "I used to own a brothel," he said casually.

That certainly took my mind off the echoes that had been consuming me.  My gaze snapped from the fire to Da Ponte's face, where I was relieved to see laughter in his large brown eyes.  "Don't be silly."

"I am serious as the grave, I assure you."

"You were a priest, Da Ponte."

"I did both - Antonio."

I huffed, though it was more out of habit at this point than due to actual annoyance at the use of my first name.  Even after all this time spent together, even after yielding to informality once or twice, the thought of calling my colleague anything but Da Ponte unsettled me.  "You went from running a brothel to absolving your countrymen of their sins, did you?  What a staggering transformation," I said flatly.

Da Ponte grinned, clearly pleased at having gained my attention at last.  "You misunderstand.  I opened the brothel after I was ordained."

"You're mad."  I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth, as was so often the case when we were together.  "No one ever heard of a priest running a brothel.  The Church wouldn't allow it."

"Why do you think I was exiled from Venice?"

I narrowed my eyes, searching Da Ponte's smug expression for a sign that this was true.  "I had always assumed you were thrown out due to your incredibly grating personality," I said dryly.

Da Ponte clapped his hands.  "And Antonio Salieri's wit has returned!" he proclaimed.  "Now, can you tell me what on earth has you so shaken?"

I heaved a sigh, running one hand up over my face and through my hair.  "I'm not shaken," I lied.  Shakily.

"I see," said Da Ponte.

How had he learned to read me so well?  I had always prided myself on being the sort of person who knew how to keep my personal opinions in check, how to separate those secondary things from my work, but since I had begun to work with Lorenzo Da Ponte I was having trouble keeping the line from blurring.  I had to get ahold of myself.

Da Ponte was still watching me.  "Did you hear any of the new opera?"

"Y- yes." Why had my voice cracked?

"And what did you think of it?"

"I thought-" I broke off.  How to continue without revealing the embarrassing state to which I had been reduced less than an hour earlier?

"Did you like it?" Da Ponte asked gently.

"Yes." I had said that too quickly.  "Well, no.  No, I didn't like it... I didn't like it." I knew I sounded insane.  Maybe I was.  Maybe that was the explanation for all of this.

Da Ponte sat back again, one hand cupped across his chin as he studied me.  For a long time the only sound in the room was the steady tick of the mantel clock and the overwhelming pulse in my ears.  I inhaled slowly; my breath shuddered as it left my lungs.  Suddenly Da Ponte spoke again.

"I often saw men in this state in my old line of work," he said slowly.  "As they left the premises for the first time many of them were... overwhelmed.  Distracted."

Why was my mouth so dry?  I licked my lips.  "You suggest that I have had a religious experience?" 

"I suggest, Antonio, that you've had a sexual experience."

"How do you dare-?" I started to say, and that was all I managed to get out before Da Ponte's gaze flicked down to the satchel I was still clutching in my lap and, in the space of a second, he obviously understood everything.

How in the hell could he read me so easily?

And instead of reacting with the proper embarrassment, instead of quickly changing the subject like any decent man would, a most wicked delight spread across Da Ponte's face.  "Antonio Salieri!" he said gleefully, "you've come into my home  _aroused_!"

"Sure- surely this is an inappropriate-"

"So it's music that affects you, is that it?  Of course it is, I should have guessed."

"If you have any sense of decency-"

But Da Ponte was making no attempt to hide his enjoyment.  "What was it about Mozart's music that excited you?  Or was it the subject matter?" He glanced at my lap again, and when he raised his eyes the amusement was replaced with a wary sort of mischievousness. 

"Da Ponte," I said weakly.  It didn't sound like I was begging, did it?

"If you call me Lorenzo I'll help you take care of it."

I jumped to my feet so quickly I upset the chair, using both hands to make sure the satchel didn't slip away as I stood.  I opened my mouth but could find no way to respond - no reproach was strong enough, no word in Italian or German could express my absolute shock.  I tried to storm out but Da Ponte was in my way; Da Ponte was putting both hands on my shoulders, shushing me and apologizing as though he were dealing with a fussy child.  He righted the chair with his foot and coaxed me toward it.  

I succumbed only because I could see no way to leave the room without first knocking him over, and to do so I would have to release the satchel that was protecting what was left of my dignity.  I dropped into the chair and fixed him with my most poisonous scowl.  Had I been working with that fool Stephanie he would have fled the room - even Rosenberg would have backed away.  But Da Ponte stayed where he was, releasing one of my shoulders only to cup my cheek in his warm hand.

"My God!" he sighed.  He tilted up my chin and studied my face.  "I knew you wouldn't think it was funny, but that...!  It was a joke, Antonio!"

I said nothing.  I was struggling to catch my breath, glaring up at him with my jaw set.  I couldn't find words.  I couldn't accept what I had just heard.  Beneath his palm, I could feel the flames of hell burning my skin.

"Easy," Da Ponte said, smoothing his other hand over my hair.  "It never happened.  Just relax."

And despite myself, despite being touched and petted - or perhaps because of it - something began to unwind inside me.  Air came into my lungs more easily and the pounding fury inside my head began to subside. 

After a moment, Da Ponte released me and sat back down again.  "Look at you," he tutted, "you're like a wild animal trapped in a cage!  Relax, Antonio.  It was a joke.  I'm sorry."

I could not bring myself to meet his eye.  Instead I pushed myself back into the chair, letting the tension seep out of my spine.  I could still feel his touch on my cheek, his fingers in my hair.  He had been so close... it was like Mozart's music all over again.

None of this was helping the situation in my breeches.  I released the satchel with one hand and scrubbed my own palm over my cheek where Da Ponte had touched me.  I smoothed my hair back into place.  Only then did I turn back to Da Ponte, lifting my chin so I could scowl down the length of my nose at him.

The moment our eyes met, Da Ponte said, "You're a virgin, aren't you?"

"That's it," I snapped, launching myself forward, but before I could get to my feet again Da Ponte was pushing me back into the chair, both hands spread across my chest.

"Good  _God_ you don't like to talk about it!"

"You are completely out of line, Signor Da Ponte.  The things you have said-!"

"Oh, shut up, Antonio, you poor wretch!"

Taken aback, I obeyed.

Da Ponte dropped to his knees before my chair, his hands planted on my shoulders as he insisted, "There's nothing to be afraid of.  I'm your friend.  What on earth is going on?"

I studied Da Ponte's face, finding no trace of irony in his large eyes.  Oh God, it was true, wasn't it?  This man was my friend, for better or for worse.  Perhaps my only friend.  He had become more than a colleague to me long ago.  Even if his humor was unacceptable, even if the brush of his hand over mine set me on edge, I had come to enjoy the time we spent together.  I found myself looking forward to Da Ponte's rhythmic little knock as he entered a room.  The sight of his hideous wig was as welcome to me in the afternoon as the sight of my bed at the end of an evening.  If I had to discuss my faith with anyone, there was no one I would rather it be than my colleague.  My  _friend_.

I exhaled slowly.  Da Ponte was still watching me, eternally patient with my moods.

"When I was a boy," I began, my voice low, "I made a bargain with God.  I promised him my chastity in exchange for a chance to- to compose.  To create music." I paused; Da Ponte nodded pensively.  "I was an orphan.  Now I'm the court composer in Vienna.  God has accepted my vow."

"Hmm," Da Ponte mused.  "It certainly seems so."

"And because He has kept His end of the bargain, I must keep mine.  I can't allow myself to be distracted.  I can't afford to lose my position.  My talent.  Not now."

Da Ponte sat back on his heels, dropping his hands from my shoulders.  He licked his lips and glanced once more at my lap before meeting my gaze.  "You promised your chastity for music," he repeated carefully.

"I did."

"Then why is it music that brings you to temptation?"

I did not know what to say.


	6. Cadenza: The Corridor

"Herr Salieri?"

The dancer has followed me.  I take one more step into the corridor before I spin on my heel.  "Yes?"

She is leaning against the wall, one hand at her hip, her arms crossed in a way that calls attention to the low neckline of her costume.  Her expression can really only be described as a smug leer.  I feel my stomach sink.

"Well?" I ask, keeping my own face blank. 

I see her brow quirk ever so slightly as she realizes I have no intention of acknowledging the looks that passed between us.  "I just-" she drops her arms, but then I see her reserve return and she approaches me, simpering, blinking up at me through her lashes.  "I enjoyed your last opera, Herr Salieri."

"Did you?" I ask.

"Oh yes!  It was terribly romantic."

I incline my head and shoulders in a partial bow and start to turn away.

"Herr Salieri!"

And then I am forced to stop again, swallowing down a wave of indignation before I face her once more.  If one shared look was enough to convince the girl that I wanted to speak to her, surely my attempting to leave is signal enough that the conversation is over.  How much clearer can I be?

"Herr Salieri, I do hope you'll come see Mozart's opera when we open," she says, her eyes traveling tactlessly up and down the length of my body.

Oh God. I bow once more.  "If my schedule permits it," I say through the lump of panic that is rising in my throat.

I start to turn away, but out of the corner of my eye I see her reach for me.

"Is there anything else?" I ask tersely.  I draw out my pocket watch and giving it a pointed look.  "I do have work to attend to."

At last, the light goes out of her eyes.  The girl huffs, mumbles something about getting back to rehearsal, and finally leaves.  Her head is lowered when she rounds the corner. 

Just as I am allowing myself a satisfied smirk and preparing to continue on my way, I hear the girl cry out and then- "Oh!  Herr Da Ponte!"

I freeze when I hear the familiar voice answer, "Excuse me, signorina."

Three words and my pulse is racing.  What the hell is wrong with me?  Of course the memory of our encounter last month in the music room still embarrasses me: the pity that had been threaded through his voice when he had told Mozart not to judge me too harshly, the surprise on his face when I had dropped that page of music.

But that was not our most embarrassing encounter in that room.

I find myself remembering that hazy look in his eyes, his voice thick with- not with pity, but with that sort of miserable desperation, the way he had clutched at my arm and murmured,  _Antonio, please_ _-_

"I'm sorry, Herr Da Ponte, I didn't see you there!" the girl is saying further down the hall.

I tug my lapels and take a deep breath.  I have to get ahold of myself.

"I believe the rehearsal is still going on, my dear," I hear Da Ponte say.  "What were you-?"

"Herr Salieri wanted to speak with me, sir."

I wince, but then I hear Da Ponte snort and say, " _Salieri_?  Wanted to see  _you_?"

So there is a worse tone his voice can take than pity after all.

And suddenly I find myself taking action, one hand tugging at my cravat and the other scraping through my hair, mussing it and pulling a few strands out of their ribbon.  I pull on my shirt, yanking it free of my breeches so that a sliver of white fabric hangs out from beneath my waistcoat, and then I walk briskly around the corner.  There they are, Da Ponte with his arms crossed and the dancer with her head lowered.  As I pass, I put a hand on the girl's shoulder without slowing, then continue down the length of the hallway.

I don't turn back, but the utter silence of the corridor is broken only by the click of my heels against the marble until I am completely out of earshot.


	7. Exposition: Contradiction

"We're fantastic!"

I knew I was smiling, and for once I didn't care.  My ears were ringing from the wine, the applause echoing in my head, and the cool weight of the medal the emperor had given me was pressed against my heart.  I raised my empty glass.  "So Lorenzo Da Ponte is a poet after all."

"Apparently the greatest poet in the empire," Da Ponte said.  He dropped into a seat at my side, one leg crossed under him on the sofa so that he could face me.  The celebration at the palace had been stodgy and rigid, so unlike my librettist himself that he had demanded I join him in his apartment for a bottle of wine.  I had agreed to one drink, but the now bottle was half-empty and I found I was loathe to leave his cozy parlor.  It was not just the wine and the fire that made Da Ponte's home so much warmer than my own.

Da Ponte refilled my glass yet again, then put the bottle straight to his lips and took an unsteady gulp.  "Fantastic," he repeated.  "We're fantastic together."  And when he tried to return the bottle to the end table he misjudged the distance and accidentally slammed it down, recoiling in surprise at the clunk of glass on wood.  I laughed.

Da Ponte's eyes widened and he leaned in closer, staring at me as though he had never seen me before in his life.  His breath smelled more strongly of wine than my glass; his cravat and wig were crooked; he had sloshed wine over one of his hands and the cuff of his sleeve was stained purple.  "You laughed," he said.  His words were beginning to slur.

"Because you're a clown," I answered, edging away from his heavy gaze.  Even when he was sober, Da Ponte had that habit of sitting too close, of leaning in too far when he talked, of resting a hand casually on mine to get my attention.  I thought I had gotten used to it, but tonight I was acutely aware of how little distance there was between us.

"Am I a clown?" he asked.  "I thought I was a poet."

"If you can be a priest who runs a brothel in Italy, you can be a clown who writes librettos in Austria."

"Then we are both men of great contradiction!"

I finished my glass and set it on the table next to the bottle, noting a bit smugly that I was not so intoxicated that I could not put down my glass quietly.  "And what contradiction have you seen in me, Court Librettist Da Ponte?"

"I see..." Da Ponte caught my face in both his hands and studied me, "oh, yes.  I see a virgin who composes the most romantic music the emperor of Austria has ever heard."

"Oh, shut up," I grumbled.  But he did not release my face.  He was listing in his seat, watching me with a heavy-lidded expression I wasn't sure how to name.  His wig was so crooked that one set of curls was perched above his forehead and the other was hanging by his neck.  Either to break his gaze or to amuse myself, I lifted one arm and tugged at the end of his wig.  Da Ponte's eyes flicked toward my hand, but he did not release me as the heavy wig slid off of his head and plopped into my lap, revealing a mop of disheveled hair in the same perfect shade of black.  I chuckled at the look on his face, but this time I couldn't make myself stop.  I pulled out of his grip, covering my mouth with both fists to hide my grin.  So I was drunk after all: I was powerless to collect myself and, for perhaps the first time in my life, I didn't want to.  Why bother?  I was happy.  Little more than a decade ago I had been an orphan pressing my ear to the doors of the opera house, and here I was, the court composer to the emperor of Austria, composer of an opera that the emperor himself had named the best opera yet written.

When I closed my eyes I could still see the audience: smiling faces, powdered wigs, and, most importantly, clapping hands.  All of them had been applauding for me, Antonio Salieri, who had so recently been nothing.  To think that one could have all this for so little a price!  That by sacrificing the chance to have a wife to bear me children and carry on my name, I would still achieve immortality through my music.  There was nothing else to stand in my way.

And when I opened my eyes, Da Ponte kissed me.

For a moment I didn't move, my drunken brain trying to respond to this rather unexpected situation.  I was vaguely aware of Da Ponte gripping my shoulder, then cupping the back of my neck.  The familiar smell of wine was overpowering.  His breath was hot on my cheek- his face was so close to mine I didn't know what to do but close my eyes again.  I had seen kisses performed here and there, but never had I imagined that I would know the taste of another man's mouth, the heat of his tongue, or that it was possible to suck on my lower lip and send a shiver through my entire body.  I tilted my head back - trying to turn away, surely - but then I felt the pressure of his tongue against mine and realized that I had parted my lips.  I knew I needed to find a way to make this stop, but it was impossible to think when my pulse was pounding in my ears.

Da Ponte finally broke away, but he didn't pull back.  His warm, uneven breath ghosted over my nose and cheeks.  His eyes were closed, his chin tilted down, and then with a ragged sigh he leaned even closer and rested his forehead against mine.

"Lorenzo-?"

Da Ponte cut me off by kissing me again, and this time I half-realized that I was kissing him back.  I was sure I had no control over my actions.  All I could do was clutch the edges of the sofa while Da Ponte's long fingers trailed up into my hair and then down across my chest, pulling at my cravat and loosening my collar.  He broke the kiss then, and I heard an awful moan pass my lips.  Da Ponte's face was pressed against my neck and somehow that felt even better; my breath caught in my throat and I tipped my head to the side as those waves of heat throbbed through my veins with each touch of his lips, of his teeth, of his tongue.

But when I felt Da Ponte's hands glide over my shoulders, pushing my jacket back, the hot haze broke.  I was suddenly aware of the icy air of the room on my bare throat, the uncomfortable weight of a man straddling my waist - when had that happened? - and the stench of wine turned my stomach.  My hands flew up of their own accord, palms clammy from clinging to the sofa, and I shoved Da Ponte away.  But I shoved him too hard, and he went sprawling onto the floor on his back.

He blinked up at me, his large eyes still cloudy from drunkenness.  I tried not to focus on his mouth, his lips pink from our kiss - oh God, our _kiss_!

I started to stand, but realized at once that it was best to remain in my seat for a moment.  Instead, I straightened my collar, tightened my cravat, and pulled my jacket firmly back onto my shoulders.  My head was spinning; I could only hope that it was the fault of the wine.

Da Ponte had not moved but for the rapid rise and fall of his chest.  He lay as he had landed, arms thrown out to the side and one ankle pressed against mine.  It wasn't until I seized his fallen wig to hold at my waist and rose to my feet that Da Ponte finally roused himself.  He leaned up on his elbows and looked up questioningly, pathetically into my eyes.  "Antonio, please-"

"I have to- I have to go," I mumbled.  Did I sound as breathless as he did?  I stepped carefully over Da Ponte's legs, the slick heel of my shoe making me stumble as I reached the door.  I retrieved my cloak and pulled it firmly closed in the front, dropping his wig where I stood.

"Antonio?"

I put on my hat, pulling it down a little too low over my eyes, and walked out without another word.


	8. Cadenza: The Study

"Herr Salieri, a woman is here to see you."

Curious.  "Show her in," I say nonchalantly.  As the maid retreats I straighten my waistcoat and pull my jacket back onto my shoulders, tugging my cuffs out and noticing idly that I've spattered them with ink.

Like Da Ponte.

Though I have been working with others for a matter of years, every time they approach me with a stack of papers and a glint in their eyes I am startled, almost annoyed, by their unfamiliar faces.  I prefer to work separately now: they give me the libretto and I take it home to compose in silence, with no distractions.  And yet I cannot quite recapture the success of those first operas.

Never mind.  It will come back to me.  I did what was right.

My maid returns, and my heart sinks when I see that my visitor is that same dancer, dressed appropriately now with a shawl covering her shoulders and a cap covering most of her brown hair.  At least she looks nervous; she isn't bold enough to let her obvious intentions reflect in her demeanor.  The maid bows and withdraws, leaving me alone with the girl.

She curtsies awkwardly.  "I hope I haven't misunderstood you, Herr Salieri," she says quickly.

Again her trepidation encourages me.  After all, it was my fault she thought she had to come here.  Yet another reason to keep Lorenzo Da Ponte out of my life: I behave rashly in his presence.  But how am I to explain this to the girl?

"I, um- I haven't overstepped, have I?  Only, I realized I was wrong to approach you like that at the theater, right in the hallway where anyone-"

"And you followed me to my home?"

"No!  No sir, I didn't!  Herr Da Ponte sent me, sir!"

The words strike me like a fist.  "Pardon me?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but when you passed us in the corridor that day you, uh, gave him the impression that it was your wish.  He sent me here and he told me to give you a message from him.  He even paid the driver!"

I realize that I am clutching the back of a chair, though the raging cacophony in my head is as many parts shame as fury.  "And what was his message?" I manage to ask.  I can barely hear my own voice.

"He told me to tell you that you are invited to listen to- no, wait, he told me to quote him exactly.  He said, _if ever you need further inspiration you can come to Mozart's music whenever the urge arises_.  There!  That was it.  He has a funny way of talking, but he means well, I think.  Though sometimes it's hard to tell with you Italians."

Of course the poor thing has no idea what she has said to me.  And now the emotion is rage, waves of it rolling through my veins.  It's the fury of betrayal, fury that he would dare to tease and tempt me so shamelessly after he had posed as a friend.  Da Ponte knows that I will have to send this poor dancer away again; he knows that I used her to excite his envy and now he wants revenge.

In two strides I have closed the space between us.  I must be mad now, I think as I seize the poor girl by her shoulders and press my lips to hers.

In doing this I have completely exhausted my knowledge of romantic gestures.  I usually witness such acts from a box seat.  It is no trouble to copy the direction of a romantic lead and take a woman into your arms: the problem is that the following kiss isn't a skill that can be learned by someone who has passed his entire life as a spectator.  How had it been so easy and normal the last time?

Luckily, the dancer knows what to do.  I feel her tongue brush at my lips almost immediately and I open my mouth enough to let her in.  Her whole head tips as she slides her tongue over mine, one hand fisting in my shirt and the other sliding up to the back of my neck.  I respond as best as I can, dropping my own hands to her hips and trying to move my mouth in a way that complements what she is doing, but the ticking of the mantel clock and the clacking footsteps of the maid passing in the hall distract me.  I wait for the rush of blood, the dizziness, the desperation of approaching madness, but it does not come.

I am relieved when she breaks away at last, her eyes unfocused and her entire countenance heavy with stupor.  For a moment I hope my own altertness does not insult her, but she quickly proves herself oblivious by sighing, "Oh, Herr Salieri, I can be your muse!  Let me inspire you!" and she leans back up, eyes closing in preparation for another kiss.

With a regretful sigh I gently push her away from me, releasing her hips so that I can untangle her hand from my shirt.  "I'm sorry, my dear, truly," I murmur. I finally succeed in separating her from me and I take a step back.

Her eyes seem enormous as she gapes up at me.  "Herr Salieri?"

"I'm afraid I've wasted your time, signorina," I say, watching her expression as she begins to understand.

"But what did I-?"

"The fault rests with me," I say quickly.  "Your are a lovely and charming creature, but I'm afraid-"

"I should have listened to the rumors," she snaps, and with that she flings the door open and stomps out of my salon.

I put a hand on the back of the chair to steady myself, but it is an unnecessary precaution.  The only thing I feel is irritation.  I can hardly spare a thought for her heated exit - to what rumors ought she have listened? - for my failure consumes me.  Why had this kiss been so strange?  The first time, the instant his lips had touched mine it had sent a shock through me like a current of desire; the touch of his tongue to mine had made my stomach twist.  It had been gasping and clutching and the throb of my pulse in my ears and that overwhelming urge to do more, to touch more, to be touched, to rip off his clothes and rake my fingertips down the length of his ribcage, to-

Ah.  This was how I should have reacted to the dancer's kiss.

I hasten to my desk and drop into a chair, retrieving my quill just as my maid appears, curtsying to hide her confusion as she informs me that the lady seems to have broken a vase of flowers in the entryway as she left.  I cannot hear her over the drumbeat of the blood in my veins as it slowly courses back to the rest of my body.  I dismiss her, but as she turns to leave I ask her to bring a bottle of wine.  Better yet, make it two.

When she is gone, I drop my head to my desk with my forehead pressed to my arms.  What had I done wrong when the girl was kissing me?

I think of the girl.  I remember her long lashes fluttering and the way she parted her lips as she stared at me.  I imagine undressing her, giving her the body of a maiden in a painting, and I imagine her saying my name.

Nothing.  The scenario seems vulgar and embarrassing.

The maid returns, leaving both bottles of wine on the desk and withdrawing.  I uncork the first and drink directly from the bottle.  Better.  The warmth the drink produces distracts me from my embarrassment.  From thinking of that funny, toothy little smile.  Those broad shoulders.  Those narrow hips.  The way his heavy gaze always seemed to bore through my collected exterior.

My ability to keep my thoughts away from him dwindles with the wine.  I finish the whole bottle and uncork the second.


	9. Exposition: Separation

"You're late, Antonio."

His voice sounded off somehow, the words coming out too quickly and slathered with false light-heartedness.  I pressed my lips together to keep myself from wincing.

He had not been drunk enough.  We both remembered.

He got to his feet, keeping his eyes on the desk as he turned partially toward me.  "Fifteen minutes," he went on, "so you shall have to..." but he raised his eyes at last and the forced cheer dropped away.

Trapped in place by his baleful stare, I could think of nothing to say.  I barely dared to breathe.

"I was afraid you weren't going to join me," he said, traces of levity still coloring his voice.

I said nothing, so he took a step toward me.  Then another.  Reason was screaming at me to stop him, to move away, even to frown, but I could do none of it.  I wanted him closer, that was the truth of it.  I wanted to do it all again, to see where it led-

What was happening to me?  This was Da Ponte, Lorenzo Da Ponte, wearing his pretentious wig and his stiff black clothes and looking exactly as he always had.  Hours spent alone with him in various rooms over the years, all the times he had winced at the heat and pulled off his cravat or removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and he was just Da Ponte, just my librettist and my friend.  So why was the mere sight of him making my hands shake now?  "Lorenzo-" I rasped.

He stopped.  He was less than an arm's length away, but now his brows were drawn together and he was studying me, his large eyes filled with concern.  He licked his lips - had they always been so shapely? - and the brief glimpse of his tongue made my breath hitch.  Where was this feeling coming from?

"Do you want to get to work?" he asked, his voice gentle.  "I've found a Goldoni play that will be just the sort of thing the Viennese enjoy."

It was a choice.  He was giving me the option to cross over to the harpsichord and leave this moment behind.  To let it all be forgotten and to take everything back to the way it was. 

But it was too late.  How was I supposed to stay in a room with him and concentrate on our work when I could not control my thoughts?  When I wanted nothing more than to rip open his waistcoat and throw him back onto the desk?  I needed out.  I needed rest.  

I shook my head.  "We're finished, Da Ponte," I heard myself say.

His expression barely changed; he knew me too well, knew what I was doing.  "Antonio..." he murmured.  It wasn't quite a plea.  One hand drifted forward as though he wanted to reach for me but didn't quite dare.

And that was all it took.  That timid little gesture snapped something in me and I seized him by the lapels of his jacket and forced him to me, his body slamming into mine and our lips meeting violently.  He pulled back to gasp for air, then crushed his mouth to mine, the kiss immediately becoming desperate: the taste of his mouth, the pressure of his tongue, the frenzy of my own need as it consumed me.  God, what was I doing?  I broke away to catch my breath and he trailed kisses down to my neck, loosening my cravat and then just pulling it off to gain access to my throat.  How could such a simple thing feel so good?  I heard myself let out one of those awful, wanton moans again, but couldn't gather the presence of mind to be ashamed by it.  I managed to pull off his wig and drop it onto the floor, his black hair tumbling free to his shoulders.  I threaded my fingers through it and brought his head back up to mine to kiss him again.  He ground his hips against mine; it was fortunate that he had pinned me to the wall with his body because the sensation was so overwhelming that my legs ceased to support me and I collapsed into his arms.  We slid to the floor together, and this time I was the one who shrugged off my jacket, only releasing him for the few moments it took me to free my arms from the sleeves.  Da Ponte was unbuttoning my shirt while my waistcoat was still on, breathing heavily as he grazed his lips over my collar and down to my chest.  I raked my fingers through his hair again, brushing it away from his forehead and watching him as he kissed my skin over and over, as he slid one of his hands up the inside of my thigh, as he looked up through his lashes and met my gaze.  "Are you alright?" he asked, that hand coming to rest just below the bulge in my breeches.

I could only nod; I did not trust myself to speak.

A grin broke across Da Ponte's face, the warmest I had seen him look in a long time.  He leaned up and brushed his lips over mine.  "I've wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you smile," he murmured.

I did not know what to say to that, but he spared me the embarrassment of replying by edging that hand just higher and cupping my erection through the thin fabric of my breeches.  My hips arched up off the floor of their own accord and I let out a ragged gasp.  "Lorenzo-" I managed to say, and just then the door to the music room flew open and cracked into his shoulder, sending him sprawling off me and against the wall.

I froze where I sat; my blood ran cold as I heard someone say, "Oh!  Pardon me, I should have knocked!"

Da Ponte scrambled to his feet, smoothing his hair with one hand and retrieving his wig with the other.  He put a hand on the door, holding it open so that I, partially undressed and too disheveled to deny what we had been doing, was hidden behind it.  Clutched his wig over the front of his breeches with his free hand, he cleared his throat.  "Apologies, I was- oh!  Gottlieb," he said, glancing at me from the corner of his eye.  

"Lorenzo," replied the voice, and I could just see the top of Gottlieb Stephanie's head swing into view as he dropped into a low bow.  "Am I disturbing you?" 

"Not- not really." Da Ponte opened the door a little wider.  "That is, I'm afraid I dozed off waiting for- for Maestro Salieri-"

"Oh, I know all about it!" crowed Stephanie.  Apparently he had no questions about his fellow librettist claiming he had taken a nap on the floor of the imperial music room.  "Imagine working with Mozart!  The man hardly ever arrived anywhere on time, and when he did he brought along that poor little mistress of his and chased her about like a wild creature!  I asked him to sit and write something, and he told me the music is already written in his head!  Well, what good would that do the orchestra?  In his head!  I can promise you, I won't be going to him with my next libretto!"

Hidden behind the open door,  I began to realize just how uncomfortable my position slumped against the wall had become.  That knot of doubt that had held me back for so long was blooming again, flushing the heat out of my body and replacing it with icy reality.  Hadn't I just received a medal from the Austrian emperor lauding my work?  And already I was willing to throw my legacy away for the feeling of a man's tongue on my skin, the pressure of his hand between my legs!  What was I thinking?  What would that lonely orphan boy I had been think if he could have seen what I had nearly done?  All those years of staying on my straight path, and I had nearly let it slip away on a heated impulse.  Moving slowly so that the rustle of fabric would not give me away, I began rebuttoning my shirt.  The skin on my chest and my neck, still damp from Da Ponte's lips, had begun to turn cold. 

"I can't say I envy you," Da Ponte was telling Stephanie.  "He's talented, of course, but working with him sounds-"

"Exhausting!"

"But I'm sure the finished product will be worth it," said Da Ponte diplomatically.  "Now, Gottlieb, if you don't mind, Antonio could come any minute now-"

"Will I see you again tonight?"

I looked up sharply from fastening my cravat, just in time to see one of Stephanie's hands come to rest on Da Ponte's chest.

"Gottlieb," Da Ponte muttered, looking unhappily down at the hand, then stealing a glance at me.

I did not move. 

One of Da Ponte's hands was holding the door open and the other was using his wig to hide his erection.  He frowned at Stephanie's hand again, unable to do anything to remove it lest he reveal either his situation or my presence.  He cleared his throat.  "Gottlieb, I don't think-"

The hand dropped away.  "Not here.  Of course!" Stephanie said lightly.  "Well, you know where to find me."  I saw the top of his head again as he bowed, and then heard the click of his heels retreating down the hallway.

Da Ponte slowly closed the door.  He cleared his throat, but he did not look up as I got to my feet. 

I tightened my cravat.  The heat was gone now, leaving behind only a creeping horror at what I had almost done.  My career!  All these years I had prided myself on turning a blind eye to temptation, on valuing my work above sins of the flesh, only to find my true weakness now that I had everything to lose.  And what vice had I chosen after all this time?  Not the untouchable daughter of a stern nobleman, not a rosy-cheeked courtesan with a warm heart, but my accursed colleague Lorenzo Da Ponte, a man whose lust had gotten him exiled from Venice by the Church itself!  When I clenched my fists at my side I found that my hands were shaking; my face was turning warm again, but it was not the same heat that had consumed me a quarter of an hour ago.

"We'll... we'll forget our work for today," Da Ponte said quietly.  "Come home with me, Antonio.  I can explain-"

I let out a wry laugh as I retrieved my jacket, keeping my fists clenched and jamming my arms into the sleeves.  My traitorous hands were still shaking.

"Come on, Antonio.  If you would just be reasonable-"

"Reasonable?" I repeated, my voice coming out in a hiss.  "Is Gottlieb Stephanie reasonable?"

"Oh, for God's sake."

"Exactly!  For _God's_ sake, Lorenzo!  You know what it would mean for my career if I let you-"

"That vow of yours is bullshit.  That isn't how it works."

"Is that right?" I sneered.  "And did you learn that in a church or in a brothel?"

"In a synagogue."

I swiped a hand through my loose hair and paced to the fireplace.  Da Ponte was still standing in front of the door: if I came any closer to him, I wasn't sure what I would do.  Could I shove him out of the way and leave the room?  Or would that senseless heat overtake me again the moment my hands were on him?  

The only heat in me now was indignation, but then, my back was to him.  I could not see that steady gaze, that lithe form, those long fingers... I put a hand on the mantel to steady myself and watched the flames dancing across the logs, reducing once-sturdy wood to ash.  I had to get out of here.

"Antonio?" he ventured.  His voice was too close; he had moved toward me.  Damn him.  "Gottlieb and I aren't... if you ask, I won't see him again.  I would-" one of his hands came to rest on my arm and I had to tighten my grip on the mantel to keep from swaying where I stood, "I would do anything you asked.  I want you to know that."

I yanked my arm free and spun out of his grip.  Da Ponte let his hand hover between us for a moment while we stared at each other: he was baleful again, his eyes locked with mine, his brows drawn together.  His hair was hopelessly mussed, that ugly wig of his was still clutched in his free hand, and his cravat was partially untied.  Just the sight of him and I felt like a fist was closing over my heart.

"I mean that," he said quietly.  "Anything."

I found myself staring at his outstretched hand, remembering the way it had slid up my thigh, the expert way he had touched me, the heat in his eyes as he had kissed my skin.  

And then I imagined his lips on Gottlieb Stephanie's neck.  I took a step back.  "Anything?"

He nodded, but his face fell.  He knew what I was going to say.  "Antonio, please-"

"Find someone else," I interrupted.  "We're finished."

"Don't do this."

"We're finished," I said again.  I snatched up my cloak and hat and left him there by the fireplace, staring after me as I slammed the door.

He did not try to follow me.


	10. Cadenza: The Alley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhhhh self-harm warning?? You knew it was coming folks, this is Salieri we're talking about. There's blood; I tried not to get into too much detail but I used to write Montparnasse fic for the LM fandom so I can't really be trusted.

The latest medal the emperor has given me is the heaviest of all, hanging around my neck like a chain.

Perhaps I could have found it beautiful if I had come by it differently.  I frown down at it, letting one finger skim the edge of the filigree and noticing the ostentatious way it glints in the candlelight.  There was a time that I wrote music that meant something.  There was a time that I could have accepted the position of imperial kapellmeister with honor.

The ceremony was bad enough, but now Rosenberg has insisted on throwing a reception at the palace.  The room is thronged with simpering nobles.  Their hair is piled high and their wrists and necks are dripping with jewels that glint brightly enough to outshine the medal that is pressing down on my heart.  They grin at me, but the smiles do not reach their eyes.

A fog has descended since the day the dancer broke the vase in my entryway.  The applause that followed my latest opera was louder than ever before, yet it rings hollowly in my ears.  Whispers trail in my wake when I walk the halls of the imperial palace.  When I enter a room, conversations break off and brows lift. 

Could they all know what Rosenberg and I have done?  Could they have seen Don Giovanni and felt the music constrict around their hearts the way I had?  Did they know that I was the one who stifled it with a few words in the emperor's ear?

But when the memories of that bewitching music threaten to ensnare me again, I need only remember Mozart standing before the church in his white jacket.  Mozart with his arms around the waist of his wife.  Mozart, who writes these melodies without sacrificing anything.  God refused to even the score between us, so I have taken matters into my own hands.

I take a long drink of wine, wrinkling my nose as I put down the glass.  On evenings like these, I prefer for the fog that surrounds me to be of my own making.

I stare at the little red droplet that is left at the bottom of the glass.  It was not that long ago that I didn't like the taste of wine.  I didn't even touch the stuff until the day Gottlieb Stephanie invoked the name Mozart in an audience with the emperor.

"Ah, there he is!" I hear Rosenberg say, and when I look up he is sweeping toward me with a cluster of nobles in his wake.  They are simpering, too.  Why is everyone always either whispering or simpering these days?  Rosenberg makes some overzealous announcement about my position, the triumph in his eyes as vivid as if the emperor had awarded it to him instead of me, and I realize that I cannot remember the last time someone just  _talked_ to me.

Simpering, whispering, snickering.  Someone presses a fresh glass of wine into my hand, and I find myself clutching it to my chest.

"Well?" Rosenberg says, his voice a little lower, and I realize that the others have moved away.  "Kapellmeister!"  He prods at the medal and I recoil from his hand without thinking.  I am not used to being touched, not anymore.  Rosenberg quirks an eyebrow at me. "It's a little bit thanks to me that this victory has been bestowed upon you, my friend," he says sharply.

"Bestowed upon me," I repeat, unable to suppress a sneer.  I take a long drag of wine.  This one is duller than the last glass I had.  I can barely taste it.

Rosenberg's other eyebrow lifts.  "Was it not?"

"It... chose me as its victim..." I mumble into my glass.

Rosenberg harrumphs, and the noise is so unexpected that I totter where I stand.  The people around us look up sharply, expectant smiles winding across their faces.  "Better to be a victim of victory than to waste your life following a fanciful dream, Salieri," he says, turning to his friends as he speaks.

"Why, you could be abandoned and dishonored like that poor Mozart!" says someone else.

I down the rest of the glass and look around for another.  _Mozart_. 

Has Mozart wasted his life?  He is dishonored - that part is true, that was my doing - but abandoned?  I remember that day at the church again, the crowd of friends who had been waiting for him over by the carriages.  I remember the glow in his wife's eyes when blew her a kiss.  I remember Da Ponte's hand on his shoulder in the imperial music room.

Companionship, warmth, family- none of it is something I can take from Wolfgang Mozart.  Even his talent is out of my reach.  I can only prevent others from acknowledging it while his music rages in my heart.

I don't realize that I am losing my balance until a few of the women that had been pressed in around Rosenberg are suddenly guiding me to a seat.  I fall into it and look up at their blurry, angular faces.  None of them are the dancer who came to my house that day.  Surely I would recognize her if I saw her again.  Wouldn't I?

I notice that there is a desk in front of me and place my empty glass on it.  When I misjudge the distance and it slams sharply into the table, it is not the sound that makes me wince.  I cross my arms and drop my head into them.  It has never been my custom to drink in public, but today?  Today... today Don Giovanni is ringing in my ears and the medal the emperor gave me is wrapped around my neck like a noose.

"Gentlemen, I've had enough of hearing you mock him," says a familiar voice - the most familiar voice.  I peek up over my arms and see that lithe figure in black.  His arms are crossed; his lip is curled; he seems to tower over Rosenberg.  I groan and drop my head again.  Of course Da Ponte did not come to this reception for my sake.

The room is on Rosenberg's side.  The next time I look up, it is to see Da Ponte storming off without even casting a glance in my direction.  For the thousandth time his words from that day replay in my head -  _I would do anything you asked, I want you to know that_ \- but the memory of his tone has begun to fade over the years.  Mozart's music is drowning it out.  In the end, it will drown us all out.

It will drown me out, I think, sitting up again and feeling the unfamiliar weight of the emperor's medal hanging against my chest.  It will eclipse everything I worked for.  In the unblinking eyes of history, mine will be the story of a man who let everything burn for the sake of his career.  A man who lost sight of what mattered.  A man who was lost, who lost himself.  There is no victory here.

I throw myself to my feet and make my way to the door, my pulse racing in my ears.  No one tries to stop me.  None of them even know me.  I was abandoned years ago.

The entryway is blessedly silent but for the echo of my own footsteps against the marble floors.  I sink onto an ornate bench and lean my head against the wall, letting my eyes close.  The palace seems to lurch around me.  Quiet, I find myself thinking.  Will my thoughts ever truly be quiet again?

"Oh!  Maestro Salieri." says a shrill voice, splitting through the rumbling music in my head.

I open one eye, then close it again with a groan.

Stephanie.

Time has been unkind to Gottlieb Stephanie.  The lines etched at the corners of his eyes from his insufferable grin are just an echo of the deep ridges that now mar his brow.  His cheeks are hollower, his eyes shine less brightly.  His waistcoat is several years out of style and the elbows of his jacket are shiny and threadbare.  I can't remember him getting a single commission since the opera he wrote with Mozart all that time ago: the first opera that had aroused this unquenchable suffering within me.

He turns up at the palace every once in a while, usually with a libretto folded in his arms and a gleam of optimism in his expression.  He is the only person who makes me uneasier than Mozart himself.

But he is blithely unaware of my opinion of him, just as he tries to seem unaffected by his unpopularity at the court.

"I hear that congratulations are in order," he says brightly, and he drops into the seat at my side.

I press one of my palms over my face.  My fingertips are icy against my forehead.

"Ah- do you need anything, maestro?  Are you alright?"

Am I alright?  I can't resist letting out a short laugh.

There is a stretch of silence that wears on long enough for me to open my eyes again.  Stephanie is staring at me mournfully.  Pityingly.  I groan and push myself off the bench, reeling as I try to find my balance.

"Easy, maestro!" Stephanie says.  He rises and takes one of my arms in his.  "Here, let's get you home."

I try to snatch my arm away, but manage to careen into him instead.  I'm not sure if he guides me or wrestles me out to the street.  I never expected a man so frail to be so strong.

I don't realize that I have closed my eyes until I look around and find myself in an unfamiliar carriage, the side of my face squashed against the cool window and Gottlieb Stephanie perched in the seat across from me.  The anxiety melts from his face when our eyes meet and I hear him ask a question, but I'm not sure whether or not I answer.

The next time I open my eyes Stephanie is holding my shoulders and shaking me.  I hear the word "address", but the rattle of carriage wheels on cobblestones is too loud in my head.  Then he is patting one of my cheeks with his hand, his voice an unfamiliar melody without words.

The cacophony in my head ebbs when the carriage finally rolls to a stop.  When the door opens I slide down to the cobbles, sinking to my knees in the street like a sailor who has forgotten how to walk on dry land.  I can hear Stephanie clucking, "-can't leave you at the palace like this-" and "-need some help, even if you are cross with him-" before his sharp grip closes around my arm again and he wrenches me to my feet.

This is not my street, not my stoop, I find myself thinking as Stephanie releases me and I sag to the ground again.  The buildings are leaning in too close, the cobbles are too uneven.  Shards of a broken bottle glint cheerfully near my foot, and the smell of piss hangs in the air.  Have I been here before?  I'm not even sure I would recognize my own parlor right now.

A moment later Stephanie drops to my side with a huff and says, "He isn't back yet."  And he places a hand on my arm.  "I'll wait with you."

I look down at Stephanie's hand, his pale fingers spread across my black sleeve, and the shiver that runs up my spine is not disgust.  I turn to face him; he is chattering away, though I think he knows that I don't understand anything he is saying.  When I place my other hand over his, his voice drops off abruptly and he looks up at me with round eyes.  "Uh, maestro-" he starts to say, but I cut him off with a kiss.

For a moment his lips fit perfectly with mine and a thread of heat winds through my core, but he pulls away before I am able to deepen the kiss, to taste his mouth, to feel his tongue against mine. His hand slips out from beneath mine and he plants it in the middle of my chest, holding me back.

"Maestro," he says again, "you- you don't even like me."

"I don't have to," I say, the words thick in my mouth.  "Nobody does."

His fingers dig into my chest for an instant before his hand drops away.  When I try to reach for him again, I feel his grip encircle my wrist and he pushes my arm back down into my lap.  "Perhaps it would be best if you waited alone," Stephanie says quietly.  He releases my arm and slips away into the night.

Alone.  How long has it been since I wasn't alone?

I slump into the empty space where Stephanie had been sitting, my temple pressed against the worn marble of the stair.  I can just see a sliver of the starry sky above reflected in the nearest shard of glass from the broken bottle.  The tiny points of light look purple instead of white.  Suddenly I remember Mozart's boyish smile and hideous coat that day at the imperial theater.  He had clapped both hands over his chest and bowed in gratitude when I accidentally saved the final dance of his opera, his shimmering jacket like liquid in the warm candlelight.  And he had thanked me!  I think of that day in the music room when he had smiled patiently at me.  I remember that afternoon before the church when he had stood there and talked to me as though we were equals.  As though I could ever be anything like him.

What would Mozart be today if I had not tried to extinguish his light?  What would I be?

I reach out with one heavy arm and run my fingertip along the edge of the shard of glass.  When I draw away, a tiny bead of blood pricks up through my flesh like the last drop in a goblet of wine.

Rosenberg and his friends want to assassinate Mozart, but the emperor doesn't listen to Rosenberg.  Mozart could still have a chance.  His newest opera, the farce - it still has a chance.  As long as I am out of the way...

I snatch up the piece of glass and try to sit up, but my head is throbbing with the voice of the Commendatore condemning Don Juan from beyond the grave.  I lean against the doorway behind me and I turn my arm palm-up.

My blood blooms across my wrist, black as my heart in the dim light of the night.  I tear my gaze away from it and turn to my other arm.  Perhaps Mozart will be the next imperial kapellmeister.  Perhaps I'll be remembered as the only composer to hold the position for less than a day.

I look up for the stars I had seen reflected in the shard of glass that is still clutched in my hand, but clouds have rolled across the night sky.  Fitting.  I close my eyes; before long, the hot, wet blood that has pooled in my lap is diluted with icy drops of rain.

This is how I was always supposed to go, I think as the chill of the rain sets in.  Abandoned and dishonored.  Suicide, the unforgivable sin.  A life spent denying myself even the slightest temptation, only to burn it all in my last moments.  I close my eyes again; to my alarm, I feel tears pricking behind them.  Perfect.  All these years refusing to let anyone pity me, and now I am to die alone in a piss-stained alley pitying myself.  It will be the last thing Antonio Salieri ever does.

The corners of my vision are going dark.  My clothes are soaked with rain and blood.  My hair is plastered to my cheeks and forehead.  Will I be remembered well tomorrow?  Or will the whispers turn into jeers once I am gone?  Will my music ever be played again?

From a long way away, I hear a voice.  Is it my name?  Could it be my parents?  My brother?  The devil coming to claim my black soul?

It is louder the second time.  Frantic.  I open my eyes and see a familiar form running toward me: he drops to his knees at my side, and I hear him asking what I'm doing here.  Each time his voice forms my name, the rain is a little warmer.

He cries out when he notices the blood, his long fingers tangling in his cravat as he rips it from his neck and begins to bind up one of my wrists.  His voice is a string of Italian swear words; if I had the strength I would smile to hear it.  I didn't think I would be given a chance to feel at home in my last moments.

He folds me in his arms, my face pressed against his chest, his lips against my hair, and I hear him say, "Don't you dare leave me, you stupid bastard.  Don't you dare!"

As the darkness closes over my vision, as I slip into nothingness, the last thing I hear is Lorenzo's voice breaking as he murmurs- "Antonio!"


	11. Finale: Eurilla

Something is rattling against my ear.

From the depths of darkness, of nothingness, the noise pulls me back.  I become aware of my body, aware that I'm lying down, dry and warm, and wrapped in blankets with a pillow under my head.  In bed?  Something soft is pressed against the side of my face.

"Fideling!  Leave him alone!" I hear Lorenzo's voice hiss; the rattling stops and I feel a shift next to my head as though one of the pillows has been removed.  He keeps speaking under his breath, a gentle reprimand in his tone, but I don't recognize the words.  A door closes and I am in silence again.  I slip back into the welcoming dark.

Soon images begin to flicker through my thoughts, sparse and random flashes in the void.  The emperor's favorite feathered hat. The gold buttons on Rosenberg's waistcoat.  Mozart's smile.

Sometimes I hear the door, or the creak of a chair.  Sometimes I feel hands on my wrists, a damp cloth, the renewed pressure of a fresh bandage.  Lowered voices.  Lorenzo's voice.  A hand lifting my head away from the pillow and warm china slipping between my lips.  Quiet snoring.  The crackle of a fire.

There is music in my head again, but I cannot tell if it is Mozart's or my own.  It feels blindingly new and familiar all at once.  It is distant and insistent, fading when I try to hear it and roaring to life just before I slip out of consciousness each time, serenading me in the dark.

I see a flash of that dancer's wide eyes.  Stephanie's furrowed brow.  Mozart's jacket.

A hand presses against my forehead, cool skin and the hard edge of a ring.  Slowly I begin hear birdsong from outside, the rattle of a carriage passing in the street, the voices of passersby.  From just above me, I hear quiet breathing.  Lorenzo.

Am I at home?  At an infirmary?  Or has he taken me in like some sort of helpless vagrant?

The hand lingers; I resist the impulse to open my eyes.

"Poor Antonio," he sighs.  The hand starts to lift away, but doesn't.  Slowly, even hesitantly, I feel his fingers trail over my temple and trace the shape of my cheek.  

Beneath the blankets, I dig my fingernails into the mattress.  If I am still enough, will he keep going?  Will he touch my neck, my chest?  The day in the music room was so long ago now, but the memory of his hand slipping up the inside of my thigh is as sharp and forbidden as it always has been.

But his fingers reach my jaw and, after a long moment, lift away.  I hear him take a slow breath.  "If you can hear me," he murmurs, "just- come back.  I won't ask you to break your vow.  I won't make you choose me over your music.  But in return... don't make me go on without you."  A quiet sound I almost recognize - a kiss? - and then I feel his fingertips against my lips.  "I just want to see your smile again," he says in a whisper.

The music swells in my head, and before I can decide whether or not to open my eyes - whether I should seize him by the front of his waistcoat and wrench him down into my arms, whether I should shrink away from his touch - the melody pulls me into the darkness once again.

But it is different this time.  I am no longer in a void, haunted by images of the people I knew, my mistakes flashing before my eyes.  This time, I dream.  This time, the images are vague and imagined, strung together with no real sense of a plot, interrupted by tangents.  They weave a thread I cannot follow.  Da Ponte was always the storyteller, not I.

The next time I can feel the room around me, I open my eyes without thinking, blinking blearily up at the canopy of an unfamiliar bed.  The room is smaller than I would have imagined.  A fire is fluttering tranquilly on the hearth, and through the warped panes of the little window I can see part of a courtyard.  The view of the sky is crisscrossed with the black branches of an old tree, dotted here and there with the tiniest of green leaves.  The promise of spring.

In a chair next to the bed sits Lorenzo, tall and lean and all in black, just as he always is, and in his lap is a fat gray cat.  Our eyes meet: if I had expected him to launch himself into my arms or cry out in joy to see me awake, I would have been disappointed at the nonchalant smirk that tugs at the corners of his mouth when he says, "Welcome back, maestro."

The cat squeezes its eyes closed; I watch Lorenzo's long fingers as he scratches a spot just behind its ear.  I don't realize how dry my throat is until I try to speak.  "Where- how long-?" I croak.

To his credit, I see a flicker of concern pass over Lorenzo's face at the haggard sound of my voice.  The cat is less sympathetic, throwing itself off his lap at the first syllable and hitting the floor with a thud.  Lorenzo cocks an eyebrow at it before pushing himself out of the chair.  He stretches, his back arching gracefully and his long arms nearly reaching the ceiling, and I realize that my traitorous gaze has traveled to the front of his breeches.  I drop my eyes to my lap, my face burning, but Lorenzo has followed the cat to the door and takes no notice of my slip.  "Do you want out?" he asks in German, his hand on the latch.  He opens the door and waits; I recognize the room beyond the door as his parlor.  There is the desk at which I used to sit while we worked on revisions to our operas - La Scuola de' gelosi, Il ricco d'un giorno, Il Talismano - those memorable, solid operas I used to write when we were together.  There is the window he used to leave cracked in the winter, hot-blooded fool that he was.  And there... there is the sofa where he first kissed me on that night when we had both had too much to drink.

I close my eyes and sink back against the pillow.  It would have been better if I had died.  In the distance, that music begins again.

Without warning, something lands on my chest, four sharp limbs stabbing at me through the blankets.  The music falls away at once.  I open my eyes: Da Ponte has dropped a spotted kitten onto my chest.  The little creature stands there with its legs splayed, its claws digging into the blanket, blinking at me as it tries to get its bearings.  I imagine that the two of us must have the same expression.

"Meet Eurilla," Da Ponte says.  He turns his back to me, crossing over to the washstand to pour a cup of steaming tea.  "Fideling found her in the street last week in the same place I found you."

The kitten kneads uncertainly at the blanket, wobbling each time I take a breath.  When I clear my throat, however, it leaps into the air and rolls partway across the mattress in a clumsy show of terror.

Da Ponte chuckles.

"Eurilla and Fideling?" I rasp.  I push myself up onto my elbows, eyeing the jumpy kitten and moving slowly for both our sakes.  Eurilla was the soprano role in La cifra, one of the last operas we wrote together.  In Da Ponte's story, she loved Fideling but thought herself unworthy of him.  

"Alfin son sola, sola e mesta," Da Ponte recites as he returns to my side.  It is Eurilla's aria, a song of despair.  "'In the end I am alone, alone and sad.'  We can't have that.  So Fideling and I took her in." He nods to the kitten.  "And it wasn't the end after all.  Here."  He holds out the cup of warm tea.

When I reach for the teacup, my fingers close awkwardly over his for a moment, and to my surprise his grip on the cup slips.  He collects himself, but not before the tea sloshes up over the rim and over my fingers.  "Uh- let me-" Lorenzo stammers, turning away and fumbling around the washstand for a rag.

I continue to hold the cup out over the floor, watching an amber-colored bead of tea stream across my knuckles and down the back of my hand.  I notice then that both of my wrists are wrapped in linen bandages that are just visible over the stodgy cuffs of the shift I am wearing.  These aren't my clothes, I find myself thinking.  When I glance down at myself, I see that my hair is hanging loose around my shoulders and the ill-fitting collar of this borrowed shift is exposing a swathe of my chest.  I look like a romantic lead in a farce.

"Here," Lorenzo says, cupping a rag over my damp hands without looking up to meet my eye. 

I wait until he has finished and returns to his chair before bringing the cup to my lips.  It's sweet, more honey than tea, and I have to remind myself not to finish it all at once.  It slides down my parched throat and pools in my stomach, hot and soothing.

"You, uh- you just missed your friend Rosenberg," says Lorenzo a little too brightly.  "He was here yesterday evening with a group of his friends from the court."

I roll my eyes, which makes him chuckle.  The warmth that flushes through me then can't be blamed on the tea.  "How good of him to worry," I mutter into my cup.

"I daresay all of Vienna has done nothing but worry about its new kapellmeister of late.  I've had more visitors these past weeks than in all the rest of my time in Austria put together."  He studies me for a moment, his eyes narrowing, before he says, "Gottlieb Stephanie has come by every morning, for instance."

I down the rest of the tea in a gulp as the unwelcome memory arises of Stephanie pushing me away when I tried to... kiss him.  Has he told Lorenzo?  Has he told anyone else at the court?  If the whispers and furtive glances were annoying before, what will they be if word has spread of what I nearly did?

Da Ponte takes the teacup from my hand and I hear myself grumble, "I suppose your friend Mozart hasn't inquired after me, then?  That farce of his must be keeping him busy.  Who wrote the libretto again?"

I instantly regret the words.  They hang in the air between us; I see Da Ponte's expression harden and my heart begins to sink.  He sets my teacup on the floor and lets out a long breath.  "Wolfgang's wife was here a few days ago with Gottlieb, but no, Wolfgang hasn't been here," he says quietly.  "He's... he's very ill.  All his losses, the rumors at the court- it's been hard on him.  But she said he refuses to stop writing.  She said- she said he's going to burn up the rest of his strength trying to redeem himself.  She said the requiem he's been working on is... killing him."

I drop my gaze to my lap, to the sleeves of my borrowed shift, to my bandaged wrists.  The kitten called Eurilla has curled itself into a tiny ball in the space between my ankles and is blinking curiously up at me.  I think of Mozart's bright-eyed stare, his easy smile, his relentlessly-shimmery coat.  I am responsible for extinguishing that light as surely as I am responsible for smothering the impact of his work.  And yet I have failed to kill myself.  I have failed to save him.

Da Ponte rises to his feet, and this time I cannot bring myself to lift my eyes and sneak a glance at his form.  "This is your correspondence," Da Ponte says, his rings glinting in the candlelight as he taps a pile of letters on the bedside table.  "I'll give you some time."  With that, he sweeps out of the room and leave me alone.

I look at the wide-eyed kitten again, resisting the urge to scoop it up in my hands.  "Afin son sola e mesta," I whisper to it, and the silly creature begins to purr.

I do not sleep well that night.  Maybe it is because I have been in this bed for days now.  Maybe it is because Da Ponte's home is too warm for the first time in all the times I have been here.  Or maybe it's the thought of Mozart's music going silent by my own hand.  Of Mozart in a bed like this one, frantically working to preserve those ephemeral melodies of his before his heart beats itself into silence.  Da Ponte's fat gray cat finds its way onto my pillow again at some point in the night, curling up beside my head and purring loudly enough to make my skull rattle.  I wonder where Da Ponte is sleeping.  Has he stretched out on that sofa in the main room where he very nearly pushed me into breaking my vow?  Or could he have left me alone here with my dark thoughts once again?  Did he still spend nights in Gottlieb Stephanie's bed?  Has he ever caught Wolfgang Mozart's shining face in his hands and kissed him the way he once kissed me?

I must have found sleep eventually, for the sunlight is streaming through that warped little window when I open my eyes and neither of the cats is in the bed with me.  Da Ponte's chair is still waiting at the bedside, but my own clothes are folded neatly upon it and my shoes are resting underneath.  I push myself up on one arm and frown at them, at my ostentatious jacket embroidered with glistening black thread.  Peeking out from beneath one lapel is the medal the emperor gave me, that blasted symbol of a position I do not deserve.

Resting atop my folded clothes is a scrap of paper.  My stupid hand shakes as I reach for it, imagining the worst.  A note from Da Ponte telling me to get out?  A note from Rosenberg telling me that my scandalous behavior has finally doomed my sham of a career?  A note from Stephanie telling me- telling me he forgives me?

But there is only one line written on the paper in Lorenzo's familiar handwriting: an address in a seedy corner of town.  There is no name, no instruction, but the message is clear.  He has always known me too well.

I flop back onto the pillows and let out a long groan before throwing off the blankets and swinging my feet out onto the floor.  I cast a dark look at the closed door to the parlor as I begin tugging on my stockings.

Eurilla's little head pops out from beneath the washstand; she watches me inquisitively as I thrust my arms into the sleeves of my jacket, tugging the cuffs of Da Ponte's shift until they hide my bandaged wrists.  "Your master is a terrible man," I tell her in Italian as I begin buttoning my waistcoat. 

The kitten just blinks at me.

I look at the address again, at the confident strokes of Da Ponte's quill.  I shove it into my pocket, wishing I could just crumple it and go home.  Wishing I hadn't let him get to me.  Wishing I had never met him at all.

"Dammit, Lorenzo," I grumble, but only Eurilla is there to hear.  I slam the door behind me as I head out into the street.


	12. Finale: Constance

Mozart's rooms are cramped and cluttered, and for some reason he is happy to see me.

I have walked here from Da Ponte's place using the address he left for me, my hat pulled low over my brow and my cloak wrapped tightly around me lest I be recognized.  I did not even consider taking a coach; I needed the time to clear my head.  To prepare myself to face the consequences of my actions.  To see what I have done to Wolfgang Mozart.  The tune that haunted the darkness in which I existed during my recovery is still dancing just out of my reach, glimmering like an echo of Mozart's smile each time I try to listen.  For the entire walk, I can think of nothing else.

At first glance, the rosy-cheeked boy who lets me in reminds me of Stephanie as he was the day we met.  Stephanie - there is someone else to whom I will need to apologize if I am going to live after all.  The boy leads me up a crooked staircase to an apartment on the highest floor, only a pair of disorganized rooms, and somehow I am both mortified and unsurprised. Half-finished sheets of music and half-mended stockings are piled wherever I look.  It is as childish a home as Mozart is a person.  The wife I saw at the church that day is more fury than guardian angel when she spies me at the door, but I hold my ground.

"Antonio!  Is that you?" Mozart calls.  His voice is clear and warm, just as it always is, so I am taken aback when I approach his bedchamber and see what has become of him.  That unruly hair of his is plastered to his brow; his lips are dry and cracked; his eyes are glassy.  I step around the wife and into the humid room.  Antonio, he has said, as though he knows me.  As though he knows the part of me that Rosenberg brings out, dark whispers and cruel schemes formulated behind closed doors.  The part of me that has destroyed him.  As though he knows the part of me that Lorenzo brings out, the part of me that needs and needs and falls apart without him.  The part that nearly destroyed me.

The wife gathers him into her arms, pressing her soft forehead against his moist one, and I feel my throat constrict at the sight of it.  That day at the church she was radiant, golden curls and an infectious smile in an ill-fitting dress.  Now her hair is limp and dull, her eyes are red, her cheeks are streaked with tears.  And still she hovers at her husband's bedside.

I think of Lorenzo's chair, of his cool hand against my brow, of the washed and folded clothes that were waiting for me when I awoke this morning, and my next exhale is shaky.

The wife lifts her head long enough to beg me to leave, but Mozart... Mozart begs me to stay.  He reaches for me, and I find myself approaching the bedside.  Now I begin to realize that the song that is filling my head is a requiem.  But for whom?

From inside of his wife's protective embrace, Mozart gestures to the music that is spread across his blanketed legs, across his narrow mattress.  The notes are crowded together, hasty and incomplete, and the composition is unfinished.  Mozart smiles weakly up at me.  For the first time in all the times he has smiled at me, his gaze is haggard and defeated.

I take another step forward, faltering when a stray page of music crinkles under my foot.

"You know," Mozart says quietly, that hand still outstretched, "I'm never going to make it to the end of my requiem."

I clasp his hand in both of mine without thinking, heedless of the hard stare of his wife.  "You will, Mozart," I hear myself say.  "You'll get better."  He has to get better.  If I have to live, so too does Wolfgang Mozart.  He has to write what I cannot.  To live in a way that I cannot.

But Mozart shakes his head, his unblinking gaze trained on something beyond me.  And now his smile has become something else, something wistful and incredibly painful.  I cannot bring myself to look away.  "No, my friend.  Death is already here for me," he breathes.  He pulls his hand free of mine and clasps his heart.

The wife lets out a wail that nearly slices through my composure.  She tucks his head into her neck, her face buried in his damp hair as she begs him not to invoke such things.  But it is too late.

I don't know why she offers to fetch a doctor when it is so obvious that her husband will not last the night.  I think of that rainy evening on Lorenzo's stoop, of the tears that pricked at my eyes when I imagined dying alone, of the comfort his voice brought me in what I thought were to be my last moments on earth.  If it were Lorenzo lying in this bed instead of Mozart, if I were the one tending to him in his last hours, no force on earth would be strong enough to tear him from my arms.

As soon as she is out of Mozart's sight I see her stagger and sink to the cluttered floor of the main room, burying her face in her hands, and I begin to understand.  Her shoulders shake: for a moment I consider going to her, or calling for the boy who led me up the stairs.  But I cannot leave Mozart to die alone.  I cannot turn away from what I have done to him.

Mozart is propped up against the headboard, tattered blankets drawn up to his waist, his shoulders slumped in defeat.  But when I take another step forward, he lifts his head and smiles at me.  "We never know how we will be remembered, do we, Antonio?" he murmurs.  "Our lives pass like a sigh.  Even the memories of us will fade someday.  There won't be anything of us left."

I shake my head, letting my fingers trail over a page of the requiem.  What Mozart has been able to do, despite me, despite my interference, will never fade.  His work will drown us all out.  "I do believe that the way we treated each other won't matter in the end," I say carefully.  I can only hope that it is true, for my own sake.  "Whether we wept or trembled or let our desires eclipse our common sense - that will fade away.  But this..." I hold out the page of music.

Mozart looks at the page, and then his eyes travel to my hand.  To my cuff.  To the bandage which is clearly visible around my wrist.  He lets out a long breath, and when he looks up at me again his eyes are mournful and sincere.  "Cling to your life, Antonio," he urges me in that earnest voice.  "Hold fast to it.  It may not last, but nothing else will either.  You remember what I told you, right?  About love?"

I nod; the page trembles in my hand.  That day in front of the church, that sunny afternoon -  _Love isn't a distraction, Herr Salieri_.

I can just hear the quiet sobs of Mozart's wife in the next room; I sink into the empty chair at his bedside, and I think of Lorenzo.  I think of our operas.  And I think of that rainy night, his arms around me, my face pressed to his chest as the world went dark.

Sometimes it is worth it to burn everything for the sake of a caress. 

I have survived my own stupidity, my own shortsightedness, and for what?  For my music that will fade like everything else and be forgotten by history?  For my position at the court surrounded by nobles who care nothing for me?

"We're all going to die one day," Mozart says.  His breath is rattling in his throat; his chest is rising and falling too rapidly.  "But none of us should face death until we know we've really lived.  We can try to hold onto everything, but it won't last.  And if I'm going to die-" the corners of his mouth turn up in a wry smile- "if I'm going to die, I want them to say that I held onto the good things until the very end.  That I laughed at the presence of death.  That I outwitted time."

I smooth the page of the unfinished requiem across my knees.  "Mozart, I have to tell you something," I whisper.  "Your music- I was the reason-"

I falter when one of his hands comes to rest on my shoulder.  I lift my head, tearing my gaze away from his requiem, and he cups my cheek in his other hand.  The mist has cleared from his eyes; he holds my gaze as firmly as he holds my face, forcing me to look at him instead of his music.  "We'll have another chance," he rasps.  His fingers are cold against my cheek.

I cover his hand with my own.  My throat is too constricted to reply.

"None of this will matter then.  We'll look back and it'll all make sense."

His hands slide away and he leans back against the headboard, his face as gray as the dingy wall behind him.  I can feel the touch of his fingers against my cheek even after he has released me.

A stifled sob announces the return of his wife.  I rise uncertainly to my feet, but she hurries past without so much as glancing in my direction.  She throws her arms around him and buries her face in his chest, her devastating cries muffled against his shift.  A wan smile works its way across Mozart's face and he lifts one hand to run his fingers along a lock of her golden hair.   _Love isn't a distraction, Herr Salieri._   How can he be so wise and so obnoxious at the same time?

A moment later, Mozart's hand falls away and his eyes flutter closed for the last time.  Before his head drops forward, before his wife begins to scream, I notice that even in death that little smile has not faded from his lips.

 

 

 

I was a boy when my father died, and I can almost remember it.  I remember a forest of running legs, I remember the hushed voices of adults, I remember pitying stares following me as I walked the empty rooms of our house.  I remember seeing my father's body arranged in a narrow pine box, surrounded by candles and flowers.  Even death could not soften the stern lines that were etched into his forehead or the grim set of his mouth.

The rosy-cheeked boy and I perch awkwardly on a sofa in the disorganized parlor while members of the Public Forces and a pair of doctors wander in and out of the bedroom where Mozart's body still lies.  The boy is wracked with sobs, but now the wife has gone silent.  She sweeps around the room, snatching up laundry and cramming it into a basket, snatching up books and slamming them onto a shelf, snatching up shoes and hurling them at a wardrobe.  When she turns on a pile of Mozart's music and begins unceremoniously shoving the pages into a drawer, I inhale a little too sharply and she rounds on me.  "What?" she snaps.

At my side, the boy hiccups and falls silent.

Beneath her fiery, tear-stained stare it takes all of my reserve not to shrink back against the sofa as the boy has done.  I clear my throat, pressing my palms to my thighs as I say, "Signora, if you need any help organizing his music-"

"Oh, his music!" she snarls, and she crumples the page in her hand and throws it at me.  "To hell with Wolfgang's accursed music!"

The page hits me in the chest and falls to the floor.  I flex my fingers against my legs, resisting the urge to retrieve it.  "I understand how upset you must be, but your husband's work-

"Look at me!" she interrupts.  I obey, trying not to wince in the heat of her wrath.  Maintaining eye contact is a challenge even in the most mundane of situations, but now?  I find it almost impossible to face her.  Despair has made her resplendent, an avenging angel bathed in the golden judgement of heaven.  I swallow - it certainly isn't a gulp.  "You listen to this, Kapellmeister Salieri," Mozart's widow hisses.  "You tell everyone at that blasted court!  You tell them I would burn every page Wolfgang ever wrote for one more day with him.  For an hour!"

This sets the boy to weeping again.

The warmth of unwarranted shame is creeping up the sides of my face.  I flex my fingers again.  "Signora, your husband's talent- the legacy he leaves behind him- his music will be the only thing that lasts.  Our lives are so short-"

"He was a man!  What don't you understand about that?  He was a father, a husband!  Wolfgang doesn't owe the rest of the world anything!  He doesn't- he didn't-" her voice breaks.

The boy throws himself off the sofa and wraps his arms around her waist.  His tear-stained face presses against her arm.

But the wife continues to glare at me, her eyes red now with fresh tears.  I glance over my shoulder; I can just see the edge of Mozart's deathbed in the corner of the doorway, the pages of the requiem littered around it like dried petals that have fallen from a flower.  I clear my throat again.  "Perhaps it would be best if I left," I murmur, and I rise unsteadily to my feet.  She does not stop me as I make my way to the door.

I fancy I can feel Mozart's eyes on me still as I hurry down the stairs and into the street.  His voice, one of the last things Wolfgang Mozart ever said: _we never know how we will be remembered.  Cling to your life, Antonio._

He was a father, a husband.  The woman who dedicated her life to him, who stationed herself at his bedside in his last days, who screamed at the imperial kapellmeister in her husband's defense - she was not there out of respect for his music.  The court, the actors, the Viennese public who had applauded him... where had they been in Wolfgang Mozart's last days?  Who had held him in his last moments, who had brought that immortal smile to his cracked lips? 

Again I remember that rainy night, my thighs drenched in my own blood, rain dripping into my eyes, the stars blocked out by the clouds.  I remember Lorenzo's voice, his arms, his lips against my hair, refusing to let me die.  To let me leave him.

That music swells again in my thoughts, my own requiem, as unfinished as the one that was scattered across Mozart's sheets.  But this time I recognize it.  This time I understand. 

The requiem is for me. 

It is a requiem for the man I have been, the man I have believed myself to be.  For the man who cared about his legacy first and his life second.

I hesitate when I reach the stoop of Lorenzo's building.  The tiniest slivers of broken glass still wink up at me from between the cobbles; a large patch of the marble stair is discolored from my blood.  I close my eyes and the music swells amid my thoughts, drowning it all out. 

I wait until the requiem is finished, and I open the door.


	13. Cadenza: Juxtaposition

"Maestro Salieri!  Is that you?  What are you doing here?"

I froze midstep, my heart sinking at the familiar voice.

Mozart.

He was beaming at me as though our previous meeting had never happened.  As though I hadn't tossed his sheet music on the floor and stormed out of the theater while he giggled at me.  As though the sound of his music hadn't filled me with this madness that still hadn't gone away months later.  This madness that found a new way to threaten my career every time I tried to work.  I was equal parts annoyed and relieved.

I cleared my throat and glanced up at the church that loomed over us, stark and grim against the cloudy sky.  It stood in contrast to cheery Mozart, who was dressed in a rumpled white jacket and smiling brightly enough to pierce through the fog that had filled my head these past few days.  In his arms was that golden-haired mistress of his, pinned into an ill-fitting white dress and grinning even wider than Mozart himself.  I looked back up at the church and then over their shoulders at the crowd gathered around a pair of rented carriages, and my heart sank again as I realized what I had interrupted.

"I suppose you don't want to join us?  We're all going to the God's Eye to celebrate."

"I- I'm just here for confession," I muttered, edging toward the church.

Mozart didn't seem to hear.  He was otherwise engaged: he pressed a kiss to the woman's jaw and murmured something in her ear that made her giggle.

I took another step toward the doors, unsure how to navigate around them without looking like I was fleeing.  "I should-" 

"Have you met my- my wife?" Mozart asked, and the woman in his arms blushed.  "Constance  _Mozart_." 

I inclined my head.  "Congratulations."

She untangled herself from Mozart's grip and curtsied.

I found myself looking over at Mozart again, at the warmth in his gaze as he watched her.  It wasn't something I was sure how to name.  Pride, maybe?  Was he proud of his marriage to a commoner?

The woman excused herself, gathering her dingy white skirts in her hands and trotting over to join the crowd that was waiting for her by the carriages.  For some reason Mozart did not follow.  He watched her leave with a wistful grin, but remained where he was between me and the church.  

"I, uh- I think your friends are waiting for you," I said pointedly.

Mozart's gaze danced over the crowd before he turned back to me.  "Are you sure you don't want to join us?  Gottlieb Stephanie is coming.  He's one of your friends, right?"

I clenched my jaw, remembering that hand resting on Da Ponte's chest.  "Not exactly."

Over by the carriages, a small woman in an overworked blue dress shouted Mozart's name.  He stuck his tongue out at her, then faced me yet again with that easy smile.

"I should, uh, congratulate you on- on the success of your last opera," I said, hoping as I spoke that I wasn't reminding him of my comportment at the rehearsal I had attended.  Each time I had tried to compose since then, the only tune in my thoughts was Mozart's inane giggle.  I had not had the misfortune of facing him since that day.  So why was he standing there grinning at me now as though we were old friends?

A group of Mozart's guests burst into laughter.  They were talking among themselves, apparently unaware of my presence, but the sound of it still made my skin crawl.  I tugged self-consciously at my cuffs.

"A commission from the emperor, a successful opera, and a beautiful wife, all in less than a year!" Mozart rocked up on the balls of his feet as he recited his list of accomplishments.  "And to think, my father warned me against leaving Salzburg!  No wonder you Italians are all flocking to Vienna.  How long have you been here again?"

But I barely heard the question.  On the other side of the street, Mozart's new wife was whispering in the ear of the woman in blue.  A few other women were crowded around - the wife's family, I supposed - along with handful of writers, musicians, and dancers I seemed to recognize from the theater.  I was suddenly acutely aware of the contrast between us: Mozart in his rumpled white suit, surrounded by friends, smiling easily and practically bouncing with joy.  And he was faced with me, a man in a stiff black jacket who had arrived at the church alone.  A man who was here to confess that he had nearly allowed his only friend to come between him and the sacred vow he had made when he was a boy.  Who had protected his career by sending his friend away, by shutting himself off from temptation and... and isolating himself.

I found myself wondering then what would happen if I accepted Mozart's invitation to dine with his friends.  I tried to imagine sharing a table with all of those women, with Stephanie, with Mozart himself.  I imagined his obnoxious giggle ringing out with every joke, the bride's mother passing me portion after portion of stringy meat or colorless soup and insisting I make myself at home.  I imagined Stephanie introducing me to the musicians; I imagined one of the wife's sisters taking a liking to me and claiming she would never love again when I gently explained the terms of my vow.  I could almost remember a similar scene from my childhood, before my parents had died and I had wound up at the monastery.  I could almost remember being part of a family.

The thought of my own empty parlor arose, its silence punctuated only by the relentless ticking of the mantel clock.  I squeezed my eyes closed and pushed it away.

"Uh- Salieri?  Are you alright?"

For a moment after I opened my eyes I thought Mozart had begun to glow, but it was only that the clouds had rolled away from the sun.  I nodded, dropping my gaze to the ground.

"Well, they're waiting for me," Mozart said uncertainly.  "There's always room for you if you want to join, you know."

I shook my head, my pulse ticking in my ears like that lone clock in my parlor.  But when he turned away, I blurted, "Mozart, how do you-?"

He stopped, fixing me with an encouraging smile.  "How do I what?"

I gestured vaguely toward the party that was waiting for him by the rented carriages.  "How- how do you have time for this?  All these people... how can you create music like yours amid so many-" I glanced at his golden-haired wife, "-distractions?"

Mozart followed my gaze.  The wife saw him looking and beckoned him over, but Mozart blew her a kiss and turned back to me yet again.  He studied me for a while with his brows drawn together. "Love isn't a distraction, Herr Salieri," he said at length.

Of course he didn't understand.  I started to drop my eyes to the ground again, mostly to resist the urge to roll them, but Mozart clapped a hand on my shoulder.  I lifted my head and met that wide-eyed stare of his.

"Love can't be a distraction from music, because true music comes from love," Mozart said earnestly.  "Love is a muse.  If it wasn't for love, there would be nothing to write.  There would be no point in writing at all."

A muse?

And suddenly my traitorous memories presented me with those heavy-lidded eyes, that lopsided grin, that low voice.  The feeling of staying up late over a score wound around me, the warmth of Da Ponte's parlor, the easiness of his presence.  For a moment I felt I could have retreated into those thoughts and stayed there indefinitely, basking in how good things had been, how easy the music had come to me when he was at my side.  But the memories were tainted now with that relentless thread of guilt.  I could not remember the time he had brought me an old Italian book he had found among his things and insisted I sniff it to remember home without also remembering his lips on my skin, his hand between my legs, the two of us on the floor of the imperial music room.  To think of Da Ponte was to think of the look on his face when he had told me he would do anything for me, the despair in his eyes when I had told him to find someone else.  And since that day, two weeks ago now, no music had come to me.  The world had gone mute.

Mozart released my shoulder and I nearly lost my balance.  He didn't seem to notice; he tugged at his lapels and flashed me that sunny smile of his.  He must have said something else before he turned back to his friends, but I could hear nothing over the roar in my ears.

If it wasn't for love, there would be nothing to write, he had said.  And my thoughts had immediately turned to Da Ponte.

I listed where I stood, blindly putting out a hand and steadying myself against a stone sculpture of some long-dead saint.  My heartbeat was deafening now, throbbing so loudly in my ears that the wedding party seemed to swim in my vision.  Could Mozart be right?  His music, my music - were they products of love rather than devotion?

Could it be that I wasn't going mad at all, but was a man in love?

And once the sentence was formed it all began to fall into place.  The long stares, the lingering touches, the heat that had flared up between us - _I would do anything you asked_ , he had said.  _I've wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you smile._ And the words had wrapped around me like an embrace, like his hands cupping my face as he gazed at me, like his forehead pressed to mine as he held me in his arms.  I looked up at the doors of the church and felt the hairs on my neck stand on end.  

I was in love with Lorenzo Da Ponte. 

And I had pushed away the one person who gave my music life, the one key to my success.  It was my vow that would be the doom of my career after all.

"Oh!" Mozart said, his bright voice breaking through the maelstrom of my thoughts.  I righted myself at once, anxiously smoothing my waistcoat as he turned back to face me.  "I wanted to thank you!"

"Thank me?" I winced at how breathless I sounded.  "Thank me for what?"

"Why, for lending me your librettist!"

The warmth that had flushed over me began to unwind.  "What did you say?"

"I mean, I liked working with Gottlieb and all, but your Lorenzo!  After hearing the operas the two of you wrote together, I can't wait to see what he'll be able to bring to me."

"My- my Lorenzo?  What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know!  Lorenzo came to see me last week and brought some Goldoni play he wants us to adapt.  I've talked him into something else, though.  You'll love it!"

I put my hand against the statue again; I could feel the stares of the wedding party boring into me from across the street; maintaining eye contact with Mozart was suddenly like looking directly at the sun.  "Da Ponte went to you?  A week ago?"

"Didn't you know?" Mozart asked.

I could only shake my head.

"Wolfgang!  Come on!" called the woman in the blue dress.  "We're starving!"

Mozart gestured toward the party and shrugged.  "Come see our opera when it premieres, though!  I want you to be there!  It's called Il Nozze di Figaro!"  And with that, he skipped across the street, caught his wife in his arms, and spun her around while the assembled party whooped.

As they all began clambering into the waiting carriages, the sun went back behind the clouds. 

I don't know how long I stood alone on the stoop of the church, my thoughts raging tunelessly in my head.  A muse!  Perhaps for Mozart, who lived surrounded by that glow of friendship, of success, of family, love could be a muse.  But it was not true for me.  Love had made me weak.  Love would destroy me, would destroy my career, would erase my music from history.

At some point I sank to the ground, my thoughts circling and circling and always coming to the same conclusion: if I was right, if love was a distraction, then Wolfgang Mozart should not be able to succeed.  Not like this.

I could not allow him to succeed.

God had failed me.  God had trapped me in this vow while letting Mozart have everything.  There was no justice in it.  He had no sympathy for me.  If I wanted justice, if I wanted to protect my career from Mozart's talent, my faith would not be enough.

I pushed myself to my feet at last, brushing off the knees of my breeches, and I turned away from the church. 


	14. Finale: Lorenzo

When the requiem for the man I have been has reached its conclusion, I open the door.

Lorenzo looks up when I step into the room; he is crouched on the floor with a saucer in his hand, that fat gray cat winding itself between his ankles and little Eurilla scrabbling at his thigh.  I feel as though I haven't seen him in years.  This room, this man, the look on his face - the last time I was truly happy, it was all the same.  For an instant I forget everything that has happened since.  He sets the saucer down and rises when he sees me, brushing cat hair off the cuff of his breeches instead of meeting my eye.  "Well?" he asks, and my heart twinges at the familiar cadence of his voice.  "How is our friend Mozart?"

"He's dead," I say, and I seize Lorenzo by his lapels and pull him into a kiss.

His mouth, his breath, his body pressed to mine - this is what I remembered from that day in the music room.  The heat bursts over me the moment our lips touch; my cheeks are already burning and my head is swimming when he breaks away.  It is over too soon.  I lean toward him, his lapels still clutched in my fists, and he grips my shoulders.  He holds me back.

The fire drains away when I see his face.  The way he is looking at me - his brows are drawn together and his gaze is heavy with regret.  He shakes his head and murmurs, "Don't do this again."

I list where I stand, an icy thread of fear unwinding in my gut.  In all the times I've rehearsed this moment in my head, I never imagined that he would push me away.  I never could have imagined that his gaze could be cold.  "Lorenzo-?"

"These past few years... you can't keep doing this," he says quietly.  He isn't meeting my eye.  "What kind of person do you think I am, Antonio?  Don't you know what it did to me every time you pretended you couldn't hear me when I spoke to you?  Every time you left a room because I had entered it?  You- you punished me for wanting you.  You made it my fault that you almost broke your vow for me." He releases my shoulders and untangles my hands from his lapels, still shaking his head.  "I want you- I wanted so badly to be with you," he says as he steps back, "but you'll always choose your career over me.  And I'm too selfish, Antonio.  I won't be able to stand it when you push me away again."

I stay where I am, both hands hovering in the space between us.  I cannot remember the melody of my requiem; a roar fills my ears instead.  Memories of these wasted years whirl through my thoughts: Lorenzo in the imperial box, watching me pretend to flirt with a dancer; Lorenzo in the music room where the two of us had nearly made love, watching me stare at Mozart's mouth; Lorenzo tending to me in his home after I had nearly died on his doorstep, learning that I had kissed Gottlieb Stephanie.  What must he think of me?  What must he see when he looks at me?  That day in the music room, the pledge he made to do anything for me - was I not the same man?  Or have I already burned him away for the sake of my career?

I withdraw the emperor's medal from my pocket and turn it over in my hands.  It is cold against my skin, the filigree biting into my palms.  Everything I have done, everything I haven't done, has been for this- this trinket.  For a lump of gold.  For the fleeting admiration of strangers.  For...

"Bullshit," I whisper.

I look up at Lorenzo, and for some reason I nearly laugh when I see the confusion on his face.  He glances uncertainly at the medal, then at me.  "What did you say?"

I thrust the medal into his warm hands.  "You're right," I tell him, my voice rising as it all falls into place in my mind.  "You've always been right!  That day in the music room, you looked me in the eye and you told me my vow was bullshit."

"Antonio, if you need to lie down-"

"Bullshit!  My whole life-!"

"You've been through so much-"

"But how can I keep pushing away our love in the name of music when- when true music comes from love?"

Lorenzo falters at that, but his grip on my medal tightens.  "Antonio."  He almost sounds hoarse.  "What are you saying?"

A flush that I hope he can't see blooms across my cheeks.  "I'm... telling you that I'm in love with you," I say unsteadily, and when I see the furrow between his brows soften I say it again: "I love you.  I always have.  I've loved you since... since the first time you made me smile."

The emperor's medal hits the floor with a clatter that sends both of the cats scampering to the far side of the room, and suddenly I am wrapped in Lorenzo's arms.  I release the breath I have been holding, letting my forehead press into the crook of his neck and winding my own arms around him.  His breath dances through my hair; the low throb of his heartbeat fills my ears.  And just as I am thinking that I'd be happy for this embrace to last the rest of my life, he pulls away.  He brings one hand to the side of my face and draws me up into a long, languorous kiss. 

Love!  The word sails through my mind as soon as our lips touch.  It has never been like this between us.  That night on his divan, that afternoon in the music room, our embraces were clumsy and desperate, our kisses were frantic.  I attributed the guilt that weighed on my heart to a vengeful God glaring down at us.  I believed every touch was an irresistible sin, a test that I was failing over and over again, and I hated myself for it.

But love- love cannot be a sin.  Love is a muse.

I slide my hands around his waist and up to his chest; he breaks away when I begin unfastening the top button on his waistcoat.

"You're sure about this?  You won't change your mind?" he asks.

I lean forward in his arms and press my forehead to his.  "I would burn every page of music I've ever written for one day with you."

"God!" Lorenzo says, and then he kisses me harder.  My hands are trapped between us, but not so trapped that I can't work open the second button of his waistcoat.

He releases me a moment after I have undone the third button, and before I have time to collect myself he bends over, his shoulder collides with my gut and he rights himself, lifting me completely off the ground.  An Italian curse bursts out of my throat; my head and arms are dangling uselessly over his back.  "Lorenzo!" I protest, but he wraps an arm around the backs of my knees to steady me and carries me into the bedroom like a sack of potatoes.

I am breathless when he drops me onto the bed, and only partly because of the impact.  He is kissing me again before I've had time to inhale.  The weight of him as he presses me into the mattress, the pressure of his tongue against mine, of his fingers in my hair!  When I reach for the next button on his waistcoat, he grinds his hips against mine and spots of color flash before my eyes. 

There have been times when I have resented the people who have shared Lorenzo's bed over the years, but tonight I am grateful that he knows what to do.  And he has always been able to read me.  His kisses are tender, and he touches me delicately, undresses me carefully - at first.  And then I lose myself in the brush of his hands on my skin, the thrust of his hips against mine.  The heat is passing over me in waves and I can feel sweat beading along my brow when he dips his head and begins to murmur in my ear.  He describes a time we were working together, practically strangers, when my fingers had touched his as I passed him a quill, and he tells me that he imagined himself pulling me into his arms and having his way with me right there in front of the emperor.  He says that I purse my lips when I'm trying not to smile, and it takes all his resolve not to shove me against the wall and kiss me every time he knows I am biting back a laugh.  He tells me that he can barely stand to watch me conduct an opera, that the way I close my eyes when the music swells makes him want to bend me over the stage and take me hard until I make the same face for him, my sheet music scattered around us.  I can only shiver beneath him as each story he weaves sends a flush through my veins.  My breathing is ragged in my own ears.  When he slides a hand between us and finally strokes the length of our erections it is too much: my hips buck against him as I come undone in his arms; a moment later he quivers and lets out a long groan as he does the same.

We lie tangled together for a moment, our breathing uneven, his body pressing down on mine, his burning forehead against my flushed cheek.  And then he lifts his head and kisses my jaw before peeling off of me and crossing unsteadily to the washstand.  I lean up on my elbows and watch him clean himself off with a cloth, my eyes traveling the long lines of his back, of his legs, taking in the unnatural sight of Lorenzo Da Ponte standing naked before me.  He catches my gaze and smiles that toothy grin of his, a look I haven't seen in years, and my stomach lurches.  "Are you alright?" he asks, and when I nod he picks up another cloth and rejoins me on the bed.  As he is passing the cloth over my stomach and chest, I see the corner of his mouth twitch as a thought strikes him.  He glances up at me with mischief dancing in his heavy-lidded eyes.

"What?" I ask warily.

He tosses the cloth toward the washstand.  "I was just thinking.  How long has it been?  That last time you were here, when you walked out- how many years ago was that?"

I shrug, though we both know the answer.

"Well, it occurred to me to remind you: you're late, Antonio."

"Late?"

He nods, arranging his face into a scowl.  "You were supposed to be here years ago, so you shall have to stay-" he pretends to consult an invisible pocketwatch.

Biting back a grin, I follow a stray lock of his hair with the fingertips of one hand.  It was perfectly black that day in the music room, the same color as his ugly wig, but now it is threaded with premature gray.  I had nearly forgotten this silly game of ours.  I had nearly forgotten how hard it was not to laugh at his persistent jokes.

"-Yes," Lorenzo says, snapping his imaginary pocketwatch closed and returning it to the pocket of a waistcoat he isn't wearing, "I'm afraid that since you were so very late in returning to my arms, you shall have to stay here with me at least until my grating personality gets me exiled from the Austrian empire."

"Oh," I sigh, "is that all?  Then I shall tell the maid to expect my return within the hour."

"Ah!  The devastating wit of Antonio Salieri!" he cries.  He claps a hand over his heart and falls back among the pillows, then seizes me by the arm and pulls me down on top of him.

I awaken partway through the night when Fideling stations himself next to my face yet again and launches into that skull-rattling purr.  But this time it is also punctuated by the long, low breathing of Lorenzo on my other side, each hot exhale ghosting over the back of my neck.  One of his arms is wrapped tightly around me, the other is crooked under my head, and the length of his body is pressed to my back.  I realize when I try to flex my leg that Eurilla has climbed up onto my hip and curled up there: her little claws dig into me through the blanket the moment I start to move.  I return to my original position, and she settles back down again.  A moment later, I hear a high-pitched purr from her, too.

There is no music in my head.  The requiem has reached its conclusion.  But as I lie there in the stillness, my leg cramping and the back of my neck tickling relentlessly, the rhythm of Lorenzo's breaths and the harmonies of his contented cats begin to fill a space in my heart that I had never realized could be anything but silent until now.  Beneath the sheets I thread my fingers through Lorenzo's, and he sighs in his sleep and draws me closer.

Even after I close my eyes, I cannot force the smile off of my lips.


	15. Coda

I did not weep on the day they buried Wolfgang Mozart.

I was in attendance alongside my colleague and friend Lorenzo Da Ponte, who, despite my own stony expression, could be seen wrapping a comforting arm around my shoulders when the hearse passed.  We exchanged condolences with the other mourners: Mozart's wife responded to my bow with a cool nod, and when he saw the two of us together, Gottlieb Stephanie threw his arms around Da Ponte and me, buried his face in my waistcoat, and burst into tears.

I do not wish to mislead you: though there were those who would have described us as rivals, Mozart's work has always been deeply important to me.  A part of me died on the day he closed his eyes for the last time.  And though it may have been a part of me that the world valued, a part of me that I once valued above all else, I still believe that the loss was inconsequential.  My music has faded into silence over the years, and Mozart's plays on.  But that is not the whole story.

 _True_ music comes from love.

It was never my intention to destroy Mozart.  I will always be haunted by the part I played in his premature death, by the look on his wife's face when she realized that he was gone.  But he died with honor.  He died leaving behind a loving family, leaving behind children, and leaving behind a body of work that would carry his name forward for generations.  It was too late for me by then.

I mourned Wolfgang Mozart as earnestly as I could, but those days were all but idyllic for me.  Nothing really hurt, not when my days were filled with the warmth of companionship, of inescapable good humor, of books that still smelled like Italy.  Not when my nights were filled with heat and tight embraces and the purring duet of a relentlessly-needy pair of cats. 

I served loyally as the imperial kapellmeister for a time, using my position to make sure that Mozart's music was not forgotten: that his operas were revived, that his symphonies were performed, that his concertos had the chance to ring out again in the concert halls of Vienna.   I paid for my sins against Mozart as I watched my own work fall out of favor with the Viennese, watched my medals gather dust, watched as fewer and fewer heads turned as I passed in the street... but I repaired my honor even as I let the glory slip through my grasp.

My story was a romance, but I was never a storyteller.  For that, I needed Da Ponte's words. I needed Mozart's music.

To tell my story, what have always needed is a muse.


End file.
